This unending cycle of mediocrity can be prevented. I’ll take a look at a typical pharma commercial and then give it a makeover, as well as give you tips for making sure your pharmaceutical brand stands out. You should, of course, consult your marketing agency before making these changes.

To make a standard pharmaceutical commercial, you need the following:

• A bland voice-over
• Scenes of nature (preferably in a field or on a beach)
• People smiling
• Lots of legal copy
• A list of side effects that’ll make you question why anyone would take the drug in the first place
• Snore-inducing music
• A meaningless tagline

Combine all these together in a blender, ad some art direction and you have a typical drug commercial. To illustrate, I’ve created this commercial, advertising the fake drug Dushenivan. (Clio nomination committee, take note.)

There are strict rules for how to advertise prescription drugs, especially on television. Advertisers have to list what the drug treats, its side effects and how to obtain it. But these requirements weigh down the commercial and leave very little room for crafting a story or creating a memorable experience for the viewer. After all, we all know that there’s a commercial for a sexual-performance drug that features a couple sitting in tubs outdoors, but what product’s being advertised? Cialis? Viagra? Something else? Then there’s the ad in which a woman rubs her knee after figure skating: Any idea what drug is being featured?

When it comes to taglines, all I can remember is that Nexium is the purple pill, which does little to inform me of what it does. Further, I couldn’t tell you what happens in a Nexium commercial—only that they announce that it’s the purple pill.

• Get the legal wording out of the way up front. Name the drug. Talk about what it does. List the side effects.
• Take the rest of the time to present a story or something memorable to the viewer.
• Finish off the commercial with the name of the drug and a distinct tagline.
• Avoid shots of nature at all costs.

Taking all those critera into account, I’ve created this new commercial for Dushenivan.

I may have gone a bit overboard with the pyrotechnics, and I shouldn’t have hired Michael Bay, but the message is there: Be different. Set yourself apart from the pack. Just because a brand is advertising in a heavily regulated space does not mean that it has to fall into the norm. Pharmaceutical advertising is still in its infancy, and it’s up to the innovators and thought leaders to define the future and not be complacent with the now. A pharma ad has to step out of the safety box. It has to shed the templates. It has to stand out among the ever-growing crowd of drug marketers. It has to rewrite the rules.

This is just my diagnosis, of course. How would you change pharmaceutical advertising?

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Fast-forward to today and the UFC is one of the fastest-growing sports organizations in the world; yet with staunch opposition from certain politicians, lack of licensing in all 50 states (after nearly 20 years of existence, mixed martial arts is still illegal in New York State) and common public misconceptions, the sport itself is still very niche. The majority of events air only on pay-per-view, and unlike in the case of major sports organizations, such as the NFL, NBA and UEFA, fans rarely have the opportunity to see an event live if they live outside Las Vegas.

Despite all those hurdles, the UFC has grown into a billion-dollar organization with a passionate worldwide fan base. (The UFC has hosted events outside the United States, in Canada, Japan, Brazil, England, Ireland, Germany, Australia and Sweden.) What exactly is fueling all that growth? The UFC’s downright mastery of content marketing. From its outspoken, shoot-from-the-hip president, Dana White, to a companion reality show, the company has wholly embraced content for the long haul.

Round 1

The sport, properly known as mixed martial arts, had tumultuous beginnings. While the first official event, in which 180-pound Brazilian Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ace Royce Gracie forced all his opponents into submission, was considered a success (there were more than 80,000 purchases of the $14.95 pay-per-view), the creators of the UFC never intended to establish a series of events, much less a sport. To have any kind of future, the UFC had to evolve the sport itself. It distanced its brand from what Senator John McCain called “human cockfighting” by introducing weight classes, time limits, four-ounce gloves (instead of bare fists) and stricter rules that would govern the sport.

By 2000, sanctioning had taken its toll and the Ultimate Fighting Championship was on the brink of bankruptcy. In January 2001, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, along with Dana White, purchased the UFC for $2 million. The Fertittas and White set out to turn the UFC around, namely by securing big-name sponsors and getting them sanctioned in Nevada, where the Fertittas were executives at Station Casinos. Within ten years, the UFC would be worth 100 times their investment.

As “Reality” As It Gets

As it turns out, the road to recovery was long. As recently as 2004, the UFC was still incurring losses ($34 million, to be exact). Only then did the UFC embrace content marketing in earnest. In 2005, the UFC fronted $10 million of the production costs to create a reality show on Spike TV titled The Ultimate Fighter, in which 16 fighters (eight divided between two weight classes) lived together in a house, trained together and competed against each other for a coveted six-figure contract to fight in the UFC. The popularity of reality TV and the rare look inside mixed martial arts proved a formula for success, even being credited by White as having saved the UFC. The show now is in its 15th season—also its first “live” season, meaning that fights are shown in real time, every Friday night. It also produced a web-only season in Brazil with notable Brazilian coaches and Ultimate Fighting Championship veterans Vitor Belfort and Wanderlei Silva. The reality franchise has since moved to the FX channel as part of the UFC’s recent deal with Fox.

Giving audiences a look behind the scenes is what has made social media and content marketing so successful for brands, particularly sports brands. The Ultimate Fighter allowed passionate mixed-martial-arts fans to get to know the fighters on a deeper level (for better or worse). The UFC has embraced its fans’ desire for “all access” while building excitement about upcoming events by creating a series of video blogs featuring Dana White. The series has produced more than 75 videos, creating nearly 24 hours of free content for little cost (the videos are made with a consumer-based camera with limited editing). All the videos are featured on the UFC’s branded channel, which has been viewed more than 323 million times and boasts more than 373,000 subscribers.

Language in the video below is NSFW.

Long Form Content

Each fight in the octagon features two fighters – two men or women with their own stories, own families, and own reasons for fans to root for them. Leading up to each major card, the UFC produces a show titled UFC Primetime which documents the two main-event fighters during their training camp and creates a three-episode series that creates a deeper understanding of who the fighters really are. This type of long-form content has been extremely successful for the UFC, essentially creating a 90-minute advertisement (available on the FX channel and on the UFC’s YouTube channel) for the fight. When a fan has invested that much time getting to know the fighters, it’s hard to not know how the story ends. If they don’t buy the pay-per-view, it’s like turning off the movie right at the climax.

Leading the Twitter Scorecards

Social media has been a game changer for sports, of course, but many organizations are still leery of their players’ using the platforms. Meanwhile, White has created an incentive-based social-media program that, every quarter, monetarily rewards fighters who made the most of social media. The award categories so far are Most Followers, Highest Percentage of Growth in Followers and Most Creative.

The UFC’s own Twitter account boasts 613,000 followers, but that’s nothing compared with White’s 2,000,000-plus. White is extremely active on Twitter and is known for spending time responding individually to fans and foes alike (tweet him this article!). One video blog featured White tweeting a special cell phone number that followers could call to give their predictions for the fights that night. When White talks about the importance of creating a dialogue through social media, he means it. His approach is unique, controversial, endearing, memorable and strictly for the fans.

Fights on Facebook

The UFC is making all the right moves on Facebook. Besides regularly publishing videos, pictures, articles and more to 8 million–plus fans, the UFC is determined to squeeze every bit of functionality out of Facebook. It has made social-media history by streaming preliminary fights (those not shown on the live card, even on pay-per-view) free (though at a steep cost to the UFC), directly on its Facebook page, in full high definition. The approach has secured hundreds of thousands of additional likes and created an entire other marketing avenue for its matches.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has embraced content marketing wholeheartedly, enabling fans worldwide to embrace a brand through a constant stream of content and social-media access. As the UFC continues to grow as a media empire, the sport in general will follow suit. It’s only by granting this sort of in-depth access to content and people that the UFC has been able to nip at the heels of larger sports organizations. It’s also forcing boxing into near obscurity (can you name one professional boxer?).

Are you a fan of mixed martial arts and the UFC? What do you think of its content marketing and social-media efforts? What are other sports organizations doing to keep up?

This eBook will show how nudge marketing can be applied practically to the social web and how an audience can be moved progressively toward a desired goal. It will demonstrate the importance of valuable, shareable content and the roles of different social networks, channels and tools and how they can join to form a marketing narrative.

While the social web has already transformed virtually all digital behavior and, therefore, all marketing, Story believes that there’s no such thing as “social media marketing” in isolation. Marketing and advertising today are either an integrated effort spanning all media channels or a waste of time and money. So while this eBook deals exclusively with social media, the best results can be achieved only through an integrated process. Our use of the terms “social web” and “social media” in this paper is for convenience. In reality, all web marketing has to be social now, and social media are now mainstream media.

Download the Nudge Marketing eBook!

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Since the advent of the Internet, blogs have provided the masses with a way to publish content. By the early 2000s, brands were catching on to the benefits of blogging, and those who embraced this new type of content marketing were seen as being ahead of the social-media curve.

Not only did blogs help businesses rank better for SEO, they also permitted customers and brands to have meaningful dialogue. In early 2006, noted tech gurus Robert Scoble and Shel Israel wrote about the power of blogs to “humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line” in their book Naked Conversations.

As Facebook was still available only to students at selected universities and Twitter was in development, blogs (fueled by comments) were the best way that brands could facilitate conversations with their customers, fans and prospects.

The social-media boom

Fast-forward to 2012 and the social-media landscape is fragmented—growing and evolving every day. Before your brand has time to set up a profile on the newest social-media site, another site emerges. Diverse audiences engage with each platform differently, and many of your brand’s audiences have audiences of their own. Blogs are still prominent today, but the approach to driving a conversation is very different.

Has conversation left blogging?

Given the presence of so many social outposts on which to engage with a brand’s audience, the idea of hosting a valuable conversation in a blog’s comment section seems antiquated. Matt Gemmell has argued against having comments at all, namely because they don’t contribute much valuable information, are used by only a tiny minority, and enable anonymity, which  can lead down some dark paths. Seth Godin, perhaps the most prominent marketing blogger, does not permit comments.

Are comments really conversation?

The argument is not about whether having a conversation with an audience is valuable. We know it is. But while blogs are still effective in regard to content marketing (you’re reading one now!), this doesn’t mean that in 2012 (and beyond) they’re still the best place to have a dialogue. Even though we have more-advanced commenting systems, like Facebook Connect and Disqus (which this blog uses), the conversations aren’t always fruitful. Some commenters comment and never return; others just want to agree with the author; others are there to promote their own content; and a few are there simply to spit venom. With so much noise, what’s a blog to do?

Don’t delete just yet

While there are numerous arguments for canning your comments right now, not everyone agrees. Matthew Ingram at Giga-Om believes that comments are still worth the effort, and even though Mitch Joel may be on the fence, he still allows and responds to comments every day. If you take a scroll down the page, you’ll notice that we still allow comments too. It’s not a mass exodus just yet, and reports of the death of blog comments (like those of the death of email marketing) may be an exaggeration.

It’s all one community

As a community manager, presumably in charge of all your brand’s outposts, you must understand the goals of each of the channels and design your content-marketing strategy according to those goals. An engaging and effective community requires two-way communication, but maybe your blog isn’t the best place for that. Maybe Facebook is the best place to create a conversation thread about your content. Many email-marketing services enable seamless integration between newsletters and Facebook, so a conversation that’s open to the community is started as soon as your email is sent.

Whether your blog is teeming with comments or completely barren, it’s important to understand in exactly which channels you can moderate the conversation most appropriately, fruitfully and effectively. It’s not a sin anymore to have your blog act as a one-way channel for your brand to use to post articles and resources as long as you’re listening and responding to the conversation wherever it is happening, whether a reader replies at you, writes their own blog response or even sends you an email.

My take

As community manager for Post-Advertising and author for a number of other blogs, I fear that comments are on their way out. I’m not ready to shut the function down, but the sadness I used to feel when a post I spent hours writing didn’t receive a single comment is far more subdued now. I share my articles on a number of channels, and some conversations happen there instead of here. When the article is shared by others, it’s a sign that at least the reader felt there was enough value in the article that their networks would benefit from reading it, and that’s a form of feedback. The landscape has changed so much that the notion of conversing with your audience is quite different, and blog comments aren’t as necessary. Don’t get me wrong; I still love getting a high-quality comment, even if it’s a dissenting opinion. But receiving comments has fallen off as a measure of success.

So let’s hear it in the comments (joke intended)! Are you commenting more or less on blogs than you used to? Are you receiving more or fewer comments on your own blog than you used to? Do you comment elsewhere?

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But since we’ve focused this blog on topics that educate our readers, we’ve spent less time sharing the great work we’ve found with all of you. Last September we decided to feature 10 brands that impressed us with their content marketing and brand storytelling efforts. But as we see more brands embracing post-advertising, we realized that we should start doing our list more often.

So without further ado, here’s our Spring edition of Ten Brands Doing Post-Advertising Right. We’ve included the team member who nominated the idea and penned the description.

SMART Argentina

Jon Thomas

As audiences, we’re fine-tuned to tune out what we deem advertising. Brands have fought back by holding us hostage with pre-roll ads and DVR-busting hidden bits of show content between commercials. But to truly be remembered, brands have to create content that’s entertaining, useful and worth sharing. SMART Argentina used Twitter recently for what is being considered the first Twitter commercial. No, it didn’t buy a tweet from Kim Kardashian. SMART sent us back to our days of AOL chat rooms (A/S/L?) and used 140-character ASCII art to create an animated video (of sorts). Simply head to the @SMARTarg Twitter page and scroll down to watch the commercial unfold. Lesson learned: If you want audiences to share your content, create something nobody else has created.

Shwood

Karen Nagy

The story of Shwood’s handcrafted wooden eyewear collection began with innovation and creativity, and the brand pays homage to its brand story through its “Experiment With Nature” blog. By profiling the Shwood team plus other Portland, Oregon, experimental artists, craftspeople and musicians in Portland, Oregon, Shwood’s hometown, the blog honors the brand’s Pacific Northwest identity and creativity.

Shwood’s latest initiative, “This Is Oregon”, is an interactive photo project that showcases photographs, 360-degree panoramas and Google Maps of 10 stunning locations within a 90-minute drive from Portland. An Instagram contest encourages Oregonians to get out and explore their great state and tag photos with #thisisoregon for a chance to win Shwood sunglasses and other cool schwag.

Virgin Mobile

Katie Edmondson

Mobile-phone providers are often guilty of indistinguishable television ads that fail to resonate with young people, falling into “Wait, was that for AT&T or Sprint?” territory. But Virgin Mobile is doing things differently with a notable online property called Virgin Mobile Live. The blog claims to be “actively stalking your cultural obsessions” with live-streaming music, photo memes and “top” lists of fun and interesting content from around the web. This is a clear play for the elusive and cynical millennial audience, which seeks inspiration online but isn’t quick to trust brands. The design and content of the site are spot-on, as is Abby Braden, the site’s irreverent DJ host. Overall it’s a successful foray into the shark-infested hipster blogosphere.

Deschutes Brewery

Luke Dringoli

Deschutes, a small craft brewery based in Bend, Oregon, has been brewing up something different of late: a brilliant digital-branding approach that emphasizes the can-do carpe diem–ism of millennial drinkers and weaving a narrative perfectly aligned with their roots, spirit and products. Their slick site encapsulates the woodsy beauty of the brand’s home state while embodying the company’s bold brews in equally bold copy (“Not for the faint of hop”), typography and content. Speaking of content: direct your eyes below, to the brilliantly executed Landmarks (“A Deschutes Brewery Film”). The four-and-a-half-minute film documents a spur-of-the-moment road trip by a young couple to locations around Oregon that give Deschutes’s beers their names—like Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Green Lakes Organic Ale and Black Butte Porter.

Besides the usual social channels—Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, used well to offer fans near and far an intimate look behind the scenes at the brewery and on the road—the brand’s Bravely Done Blog provides a well-maintained study of “independence in art, music, beer, life.” Lastly, the craft brewery executes an impressive social-to-local events program. Dubbed “Base Camp for Beer Fanatics,” the effort aims to celebrate one of the company’s most popular brews with in-depth events for beer aficionados across the country. Meanwhile, Woody (an enormous wooden keg on wheels) makes the brand’s presence known at beer events all over. It’s all carefully documented on Deschutes’s social platforms.

Now, this is the kind of beer branding we here at Post-Ad will toast to: work that represents not only the spirit of the brand and what it stands for but where it’s from, who’s behind the scenes and what’s happening next—neatly, succinctly and with real passion and personality. In particular, the brand’s long-form Landmarks video should serve as a case study for how to humanize and localize products and put them into context in four and a half minutes.

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

Katie Edmondson

Kraft Mac and Cheese may seem like just another CPG brand, but it is using social media in innovative ways with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. Take Kraft’s “Old Birds, New Tweets” stunt, for which it recruited two eighty-somethings to take over its Twitter account for a few days. In doing so, Kraft entertained the masses (because old people are funny) and also positioned itself as an authority in social media (i.e., this is a fun change for us because we usually have super-savvy young people running our Twitter). When several thousand Facebook fans liked one of its posts, Kraft created a musical video to thank them. The “Likeappella” makes a unique long-form video, and it’s another way that Kraft is asserting itself as a presence in the social-media world.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Adam Uhrynowski

Pay no attention to the Nielsen ratings: the late-night host winning the much coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic on the Internet isn’t known for his giant chin or the gap between his teeth. Jimmy Fallon has figured out that attracting young viewers means creating and producing hilarious and hip viral videos. From creating Jersey Shore parodies to rapping with Justin Timberlake (our fave) to getting President Obama to slow jam the news, Fallon’s team develops content that people want to watch over and over. While Jimmy Kimmel has created memorable videos (I’m F**King Matt Damon; I Ate My Kid’s Halloween Candy) and Conan O’Brien’s TeamCoCo has been prolific, no late-night host can match the news-making viral videos of Jimmy Fallon and Co.

Dove Australia

Jon Thomas

As a Facebook user in his early (and I stress early) 30s, I’d love to meet the Facebook folks who wrote the algorithm for ad-display criteria. Reason being, if I paid much attention to those ads, I’d be convinced that I was in desperate need of a second M.B.A., a weight-loss program and yet another credit card. While the ads are not overly negative, the knowledge that for some reason these ads are targeting me makes me feel, well, not so hot.

Enter Dove, Australia. I’m not in its target market, but I still love its recent Facebook makeover campaign. Their Facebook app allows users to take advantage of Dove’s Facebook media buy to replace standard ads (Muffin top? Jelly roll?) with Dove’s feel-good messages about women’s bodies. I may even use it, because, hey, anything’s better than being told I’m a perfect fit for a study on gout.

Absolut Vodka

Eric Anderson

Futuristic holograms, space-age fashion, racing robot greyhounds and, of course, vodka come together to form Absolut’s campaign to promote its newest mixed drink, Greyhound. Teaming up with house-music group Swedish House Mafia, the always culturally hip vodka company has created the first song and video inspired by an Absolut cocktail. The new grapefruit-flavored drink makes a small appearance in the video, but Absolut has managed to create a wildly mesmerizing and one-of-a-kind video that will draw consumers to its brand.

This is not the first time that Absolut Vodka has collaborated with artists to create unique and engaging content (you may remember the short film I’m Here by Spike Jonze in 2010). Its latest creative venture is part of what it’s calling multidimensional cocktail experiences. At the end of the video, Absolut provides a link to its site, where you can actually remix the song yourself via its Facebook app or check out some more mixed drinks.

Coca-Cola

Jon Thomas

Coca-Cola earned its way onto this list even without creating an ad. Instead, Coke has won our hearts by creating a video (split into two YouTube videos) chronicling how it will approach media in the coming years. Jonathan Mildenhall, VP of global advertising strategy and creative excellence at The Coca-Cola Company, narrates the video using language so familiar to our culture at Story Worldwide that we’re convinced he’s a loyal Post-Advertising reader! The video’s visuals are not to be overshadowed either. The hand-drawn storyboard is amazing.

Whole Foods

Luke Dringoli

The Austin, Texas–based Whole Foods Market, now a worldwide chain of organically inclined, eco-conscious markets, has lately made strides in getting its brand across through new and emerging social media. With admirable transparency, Whole Foods has drummed up 40,000+ followers on the burgeoning social photo platform Instagram. The brand celebrated Earth Month in April with a multilayered Instagram photo contest, artfully emphasizing the company’s Green Mission with a new challenge every week.

Building on the success of fun nonbranded activities like #PHOTOADAY and #warbywalk, eyewear maker Warby Parker’s Instagram-based New York City photo hunt, Whole Foods asked its audience of amateur photographers to explore the themes of recycling and reusing, “Earth-friendly” food, sustainable transportation and the overall protection of our planet. Going beyond promotions, Whole Foods is candid in its comments and responses and seems to frequently hand the keys over to employees who are passionate about what they do. One example involves an enthusiastic beer-department employee sharing a few of his/her favorite products on Instagram. When the employee posted a photo of Ranger India Pale Ale, a canned brew by New Belgium Brewery—also an avid Instagram-ing brand—the brewery responded to the photo and a lovefest was had:

In addition, Whole Foods is also an early adopter of the social-bookmarking platform Pinterest, most recently calling on its nearly 30,000 followers via its 900,000 Facebook fans for “Pins for Mom”, a contest that encourages sharing of the brand’s recipe content with one’s mother. It’s a promotion that’s low on cost (three $100 gift cards are to be given away) and high on engagement. Elsewhere, WFM does good work with localized social media for stores in larger markets. For instance, Whole Foods Market NYC posts about new items, sales and events specific to its locations, making the post content more compelling and the responses from community managers more helpful.

Who would you nominate?

Sharing an idea over the web is nothing new. We saw it years ago when blogs grew in popularity, and the rise of social media has made collaborative ideation easier than ever. The Internet, through its collective connectedness, has enabled the incubating and realizing of great ideas on a grand scale.

Call it the complete and total leveling of the previously arduous process of bringing a product to market—an idea to fruition, a cause to the concerned. With nothing but pure, unadulterated crowdsourcing at work, direct-to-consumer platforms help the best ideas rise to the top of the heap. The rest, somewhat rightfully so, fall by the wayside. “We are all our own media empire,” as Simon Dumenco said at the Post-Advertising Summit. In the same vein, we are all our own record producers, merchandisers, investors and so on.

Kick-starting an Idea

Kickstarter.com describes itself as “a funding platform for creative projects.” In short, it connects any company or individual with an idea to those with money who’d like to fund that brilliant idea. Your project must reach its preset dollar goal in X number of days or none of the funds pledged are handed over. If it’s not brilliant enough for anyone other than your mom and sister to chip in a few bucks, then no harm, no foul.

When Tim Schafer and his video game production company, Double Fine, wanted to create a new point-and-click adventure game, they pitched their idea directly to the crowd. They set a goal of $400,000 in funding. When their deadline hit, they had racked up a cool $3,336,371, effectively smashing the Kickstarter record of $1,464,706, held by The Elevation Dock.

But that’s pennies compared with the runaway success story that is the Pebble. This ingenious smart watch, proposed by Eric Migicovsky, has shattered the Kickstarter record, and it still has 24 days’ worth of fund-raising to go. The product, which is in its production stage, raised $3.7 million via the platform in less than a week. As of April 24, an astounding 43,500+ backers have pledged more than $6.4 million in funding. Tens of thousands of actual Pebble watches have already been sold through the page. With backers having the opportunity to get the watch at significant discounts on its planned retail price, via tiered pledge incentives that Kickstarter enables, it makes sense that so many would jump on board so early.

But what if the product or service ends up costing more than what was originally anticipated? In an article on FastCompany about the Pebble’s success, Lydia Dishman offers the cautionary tale of Star Command, a video-game project funded through the platform that, while seemingly successful, left the developers with a fraction of the total Kickstarter-raised funds after various fees (Kickstarter’s 5 percent, Amazon’s 3 percent for processing), taxes and costs. To the newest class of hopefuls: take these costs into consideration before setting your goal.

One key benefit of note: the investment requested per individual is, all told, quite minimal. Instead of a small group of people shelling out big sums of money and banking on their investment for financial gain, you have a large crowd of real-life consumers each of whom is chipping in simply because they are interested in the product—which leads to a rock-solid base of early adopters and product loyalists. Through inventive fund-raising, they become heavily invested in their project’s success for all the right reasons. Better still, their hand raising ensures, at least in the short term, that the project has popular appeal.

Providing Opportunity

Kickstarter isn’t the only straight-to-consumer, middleman-free platform. Kiva.org is a nonprofit website that lets users grant microloans to struggling citizens and budding entrepreneurs throughout the globe (typically in developing countries). The platform single-handedly permits the funding of the kinds of small projects that change lives. For lenders, it presents the opportunity to give to a nonprofit without losing money: while the lending repayment isn’t guaranteed, more than 98 percent of the time the lender is repaid.

Etsy—a Work of Art

Then there’s Etsy, an online marketplace for artists and artisans hoping to sell their homemade goods. Whether you’ve painted a portrait, strung together a necklace or constructed an elbow-macaroni sculpture, Etsy’s the place to peddle original creations. Instead of hunting down galleries or gift shops, the platform gives artists and artisans the ability to sell quickly, without a middleman, via their own web store. It has empowered the hand crafter to sell their creativity without the inherent hurdles of finding the consumers. They’re already there, searching through Etsy for that perfect, and often customizable, gift, whether it be for their significant other or just for themselves.

That’s Not All

Of course, these aren’t the only instances in which the traditional middleman has been proven largely obsolete. Authors have been self-publishing books for years (how about this budding author?), and musicians and filmmakers have seen success from streaming and selling music and videos online through DIY sources, like bandcamp. Airbnb has helped transform an extra room into a steady income, changing the lives of many, and Relay Rides has hip-checked the rental-car corporations out of the way to connect those in need of temporary wheels (you can pay by the hour) with those who have them.

Might this approach eventually knock the middleman out of the publishing cycle and content-creation process entirely? Or is there an unforeseen tipping point yet ahead at which the effectiveness of the approach diminishes? Yes, there are certain cases in which a middleman is surely needed. But instead of the old guard (old-fashioned book publishers, medieval-minded movie studios), what if this new middleman is instead a relevant, like-minded brand? Companies like Converse and Mountain Dew have already proven themselves serious alternatives for emerging artists looking to eschew traditional record labels.

What exactly will this crowdsourcing ecosystem look like in a decade? Just like the projects that these sites hope to incubate and help flourish, it grows larger with each success story. Beyond proving the usefulness of the model, the incredible example of the Kickstarted Pebble watch may very well be seen as a watershed moment in crowdsourcing 10 years from now.

What do you think about this emerging model? Have you ever funded a start-up or paid a seller directly through one of these sources? Have you ever shared your room or car?

This post originally appeared in our April issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

In the days of AOL, our in-boxes were cherished spaces. When we heard the computerized voice proclaim, “You’ve got mail!” our hearts leapt. “Someone cares enough to have written me an email!” we thought. And back then, when it took a good five ear-piercing minutes to boot up your 28.8K modem and dial into AOL, an email was almost as good as a handwritten letter, and faster.

Brands caught on, however, and soon our in-boxes became a seething mess of spam. Any brand communication was seen as intrusive and as annoying as a telemarketer’s call during dinner. Email marketing companies flourished at first, aiding and abetting these brand messages, but around 2007 it seemed (to me at least) as though email marketers were going the way of Myspace background designers and door-to-door salesmen. With the emergence of social media, why spend time dodging spam filters when you could talk directly to your audience on Facebook or Twitter?

IT HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THIS

Certainly the approach to email marketing has changed in the past decade. In the late 90s and early aughts, brands took shortcuts, often resorting to buying email lists and attempting to close the sale in the first contact. If you’ve ever tried to find a potential mate in a bar, you know that your pickup line can’t be an invitation to come home with you. Instead, audiences wanted (and still want) valuable content that is of some use to them, whether it informs or simply entertains. Not all brands understood this a number of years ago, and, rightly, audiences rejected their pestering, relegating them to their junk folders.

Around 2005, social media grew massively, and the social paradigm shifted. We, as an audience of consumers, embrace brands now more than ever. We let them into our social streams and email in-boxes, to which we’re obsessively tethered. The opt-in and permission-based models have allowed brands to communicate with audiences who actually want to hear from them, as long as they’re delivering perceived value, which can be in the form of a useful tip, a funny comic or a 20-percent-off coupon. There has never been a better time for marketers than now, when the possibilities seem endless.

You don’t have to be an early adopter or the first brand on the next social platform to be innovative. You just have to be innovative. Daily-deal sites are powered by email. We want to sign up to make sure we have an opportunity to snag that deal, especially if there are limited quantities. Daily-deal sites didn’t invent the idea of discounted products, nor did they invent email (that was Gore, right?); they simply connected their audience to value, and email is their powerful vehicle.

So why does email seem like an afterthought for many brands?

Every day, I’m asked to “like” something, “pin” something, follow something, “plus” something, vote something up or share something. Brands are so eager to get me to take action, you’d think that Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest were the Holy Grail of marketing, as if there were a proven direct correlation between Pinterest followers and sales in the same way there’s one between eating and staying alive. That’s not to say that those channels aren’t important, because they are (when used effectively), but email marketing is treated like an aging middle relief pitcher. Sure, he’s experienced and reliable and without him we wouldn’t have won as many games, but he’s not sexy and not new and doesn’t look web 3.0 enough!

What I don’t see is that same concerted effort by brands to get audiences to opt into their email lists, where they send content of great value (there’s a difference between that and simply baiting audiences for their email through a single piece of content and then using it for whatever the brand pleases).

EMAIL IS SO VERY NOT DEAD

It’s become a bit of a cliché to say that email marketing isn’t dead, as if people were bailing on their email clients à la the mass exodus from Friendster and MySpace and authors like myself are proclaiming an Easter miracle. We all know that there’s value in being able to connect to the one place we check more religiously than our social channels. Email is not dead, nor has it ever been, but it has definitely taken a backseat as far as headlines and tweets go. But is the backseat designation justified?

In a recent survey by ExactTarget, 91 percent of respondents said they checked their email daily, while only 57 percent said they checked their Facebook accounts every day.

Also of note: 77 percent of respondents claimed that email was their preferred channel for permission-based promotional messages. The next closest, if you can believe it, was direct mail, with a whopping 9 percent.

It doesn’t matter whether email marketing is making headlines or fading into obscurity. It’s been proven that there’s no better time than now to build your list and start connecting with audiences through email.

It’s not lost on me that we at Post-Advertising do a lot of writing about the latest social-media trends, and that we even hosted a summit about the future of advertising. Facebook, Path, Google+, Pinterest: We’ve blogged about them all. But what Post-Advertising is truly all about is discussing the best ways for brands to become publishers and create ongoing content that engages and builds audiences. So while marketers love to play with and explore the shiny new toy, they should remember not to leave the old ones behind.

If you can do it right, email marketing may be the best way into your audience’s hearts and wallets.

Are you utilizing email more than social channels? How much time do you spend on each?

So when it comes to advertising, it’s almost laughable to think that audiences would ever have the time for long-form content—no less long-form branded content. Maybe a 30-second spot could slip by, but audiences would never find 20 minutes to watch a sponsored video and then spend another 10 sharing it with their networks, simply because they loved it, right?

Who has the time?

Nobody, it would seem. Not that we ever really did, but still, just a few decades ago, it was difficult to avoid interruptive marketing. We couldn’t fast-forward over television commercials. We couldn’t opt to “skip this ad.” We couldn’t pay for commercial-free radio. We couldn’t see that it was a telemarketer calling us during dinnertime. But now it’s easy to ignore marketers, so much that we have little, if any, patience for marketers when we’re exposed to advertising.

In the post-advertising age, this is what we call the Free-Time Paradox.

If you look at the graphic below, the yellow dot is the audience being battered by “messaging” and conversion efforts. Over time, as a result, they’ve put up their blinders and gone into defense mode. They certainly don’t have 30 seconds for an interruption.

However, when audiences are exposed to content that is valuable, entertaining, emotive and simply enjoyable—even if it’s branded—they miraculously have 30 minutes to watch and then share the content with their own audiences. And, as Mark Scaefer remarked at our recent Post-Advertising Summit, “we are an audience of audiences.”

So, in the image above, the audience not only accepts the message, but spreads message—often without prompting, and on their own accord.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

According to a recent study by Time Warner’s Time Inc. and Boston’s Innerscope Research, audiences in their twenties switch media venues about 27 times per nonworking hour. Meaning, in essence, that one of the most valuable demos—twentysomethings—is also one of the most elusive and distracted.

This seems to be a perfect formula for the failure of long-form content: Marketing to audiences seemingly without attention spans, who have little free time and an aversion to branded content.

But long-form content, when done effectively, is thriving. Here are a few examples:

Nike Fuelband
Whether it’s brilliant foresight or dumb luck, Nike hired filmmaker Casey Neistat to “create a movie about what it means to #makeitcount.” #Makeitcount is the hashtag used for their Nike Fuelband campaign. Instead of making a run-of-the-mill brand flick, Casey and his buddy Max spent the film’s entire budget to travel the world. The trip lasted them 10 days, and the resulting video (almost five minutes long), published a little more than a week ago, has amassed nearly 4 million views.

Chipotle
Forgoing a spot on the Super Bowl, Chipotle opted for the more cost-efficient 2012 Grammy Awards to premiere their first national TV ad—sorry, “short film.” Clocking in at over two minutes, the placement “depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future,” according to the YouTube description. Two-minute commercials are rare, but the spot was so successful that it even upstaged some Grammy performances that night.

HBO Sports 24×7
As a sports fan, one phenomenon I’ve seen in the last few years has been the mini-documentaries leading up to a sporting event. HBO Sports’ 24×7 series has chronicled the lead-up to a number of high profile boxing matches, including the likes of Manny Pacquaio and Floyd Mayweather (though not against each other). The UFC has begun a similar version entitled UFC Primetime. The episodes feature behind-the-scenes footage of the fighters training for the bout, as well as interviews and storylines that create a deeper understanding of who these athletes really are. While entertaining, there’s no doubt about it: these are long-form advertisements—teasers, if you will—for pay-per-view events that complete the story.

KONY 2012
The new poster child for branded viral content, we wrote extensively about the KONY video last month. While the nonprofit is not without its detractors, the video, clocking in at nearly 30 minutes, boasts over 87 million views to date. The filmmakers, Invisible Children, used compelling storytelling techniques to weave a narrative around their brand story. They encouraged audiences to view, share and act.

Breaking the Barrier

Reaching modern audiences isn’t as simple as buying a Yellow Pages ad or sending door-to-door salesmen around the neighborhood. We all know that. However, that’s exactly why valuable brand content is so critical. Only by producing great content can the Free-Time Paradox work to a brand’s advantage.

Sure, long-form branded content isn’t cheap or easy to create, but it can tell a rich, impactful story that’ll pay dividends short-form blips can’t touch. It may seem as though audiences have less time and patience for marketing, but stories are powerful enough to break through those barriers. Consumers may not have 30 seconds for an ad, but they do have 30 minutes for a great story.

With brand-run film production houses up and running (get a load of BMW Films or Lexus L Studio) and episodic, story-rooted content on the rise, the future of media consumption looks long, involved and invested.

What other long-form branded content examples have you seen and shared?

Let me start off by saying that there are plenty of useful, worthwhile social media tools out there. But most of these tools are only helpful to a small segment of the broader social media world. There are tools for following/unfollowing on Twitter, tools for measuring insights and tools for shortening links. These are all helpful. But my real qualm is with the more general, centralized tools that claim to be one-stop shops for all those involved in a brand’s social properties, from analytics and reporting to active listening and response work. While we won’t name names, these range from popular “freemium” choices to expensive, business-grade solutions.

The promise of their pitch—that short work can be made of a variety of tasks, on a number of accounts—ultimately appeals most to the audience management discipline and community managers like myself. Our days are anything but predictable and often require odd work hours be held in order to engage best with our core audience(s). A tool that could—reliably—lighten the load would come as a godsend. And, since more marketing budgets these days are doling out larger slices of the pie to social media campaigns and ongoing social maintenance, new reporting/responding/listening/scheduling tools are cropping up by the dozens.

But hey, how tough can it be to create relevant, engaging content? Industry commentators like Clay Shirky claim that publishing is not a job or a profession anymore. “There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done,” stated Shirky on Gigaom this past week. Any savvy marketer knows that it’s a bit more complicated than that. Once you “press publish”—something that’s accomplished in different ways on different channels—there is the matter of monitoring and syndication. Yes, publishing has changed dramatically, has become entirely democratized, but it’s at the heart of great audience management and every marketer’s content strategy. Each follow-up comment or response sent is a part of a new publishing process carried out by community managers and audience management practitioners everywhere. Social media tools try to make this process more streamlined, but they tend to be lacking in several areas.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS FAIL

1.) POOR FACEBOOK SUPPORT

The most essential part of any hub-style tool is Facebook Pages integration. And one of the biggest problems plaguing 3^rd party social tools is Facebook’s protectiveness over its native functionality. For example: Facebook’s Application Programming Interface (API) does not always allow external sites to utilize its particular share functionality. When it comes to posting photos on Facebook through a social tool, the photo will not automatically go into the Wall Photos album. Instead, it may appear with a shortened link and be hosted on a non-Facebook site.

It may seem nitpicky, but as a community manager, these are the particularities that make or break a brand’s social profile in the eyes of consumers. If things don’t look quite right, followers may find your Page half-heated or disingenuous. For instance: updates published with a “posted via” indictor—which is the case with 3^rd party tools—indicate that the content was likely scheduled ahead of time, which means the page has a pre-planned content calendar. Knowing the page has premeditated their actions cheapens the experience. (See: Post Advertising’s “5 Rules for Brands to Avoid Being Pruned From Social Profiles”)

2.) FAULTY SCHEDULING

Social media tools allow you to schedule posts well in advance. This is one of their primary benefits. (You know, in case a community manager wants to have a life and go out without worrying about finding a computer at 9pm to post from…) But because these tools rely on communication with external websites and apps, they are sometimes unreliable when scheduling posts. When posting directly on Twitter.com, an error message will instantly appear if the server is overloaded. These sort of notifications are often unavailable with a third-party tool. For a tool to be used consistently, it must be solidly reliable. Errors made by a tool when posting, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, can make the brand in question appear incompetent. Posting errors are unacceptable when a content calendar has been signed off on, or when a post’s effectiveness relies on its timeliness.

3.) NO MOBILE APP

Furthermore, many tools do not have mobile app versions. For a community manager on the go, this is absolutely essential. If I think of a brilliant tweet on a Saturday afternoon at the park (and c’mon, when are they not brilliant?), I want to whip out my phone and quickly post it before the thought slips away. Sure, I could use the Twitter app, but most social tools insist that you post from their platform at all times. You must stay faithful to the platform at all times in order for it to work correctly, and confusion can ensue when you stray from the path. Social tools must work in harmony with the social networks the sync with—and they must be offered on a variety of platforms (iPad, iPhone, Andorid, etc).

4.) AWKWARD INTERFACE

Although native social media sites are becoming increasingly complicated in terms of new functionality and services, their design still remains clean, user-friendly and well thought out. Social media tools, however, tend to be rather clunky and outdated. They simply cannot keep up with fast-moving, well-staffed platforms that have time to spend on user experience, design and flow. These tools are not as intuitive as they should be, and most people will not bother to go through a complicated training process to master them. The flow and interface of a social tool must at least be up par with the networks their potential users access on a daily basis.

5.) NEW FEATURES NOT SUPPORTED

Facebook introduces new features and functionality often. Since most companies developing 3^rd party social tools for the platform are quite tiny, and given the unpredictable nature of Facebook’s updates, any Page management solution outside Facebook will inevitably lag behind and lack functionality for a good while. For example: direct messaging between Pages and consumers—a now-vital feature added the new Facebook Pages Timeline update—hasn’t been integrated into most 3^rd party social tools, but it is yet another space (if enabled, which it should be) that must be monitored by community managers. This means that a community manager still has to spend time on the Facebook platform. And if you are going to be checking direct messages (through their new Admin Panel, which now acts as a built-in “hub”), then you might as well check recently activity on your Timeline. And respond to comments made on your photos. Soon enough, even the most competent social tool falls by the wayside. Developers: keep up with the times!

Still, many clients require that a listening/responding/reporting tool be used by whoever they’ve entrusted to manage their social presence. They may want access themselves, or the ability to approve copy and check statistics in real time. And community managers like myself also want a more robust solution—but a slow, cumbersome platform that lacks the features and interface necessary for great audience management will cause more problems and burn more time than it ever saves. The tools that are robust, full-featured and up-to-date are also—naturally—the most expensive to license, making them largely out of reach to the average social media professional. Popular freemium tools impress, but lack that extra bit of professionalism that’s needed to be taken seriously as enterprise-level solutions.

This much is true: there’s no single tool available that’s trusted by and readily available to community managers everywhere. Will this change? Will platforms like Facebook and Twitter eventually develop their own fully integrated software for social media professionals? Only time will tell.

Which social media tools do you use? What functionality would you like to see in a tool?

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Few editorial outlets put these ideas into action, in real life, alongside fellow industry colleagues. But last Thursday, March 29th, we finally brought Post-Advertising readers, Story leaders, storytellers, agencies and brands together to not just write, but actually prove, that the path towards and through the future of marketing is paved with storytelling. More about what unfolded after the jump.

The inaugural daylong event was structured to be everything but your usual marketing conference. Instead of an onslaught of individual speakers providing thinly-veiled sales pitches, we focused the day around six distinct one or two hour sessions – a morning keynote by Ad Age’s Simon Dumenco; two panels (morning and afternoon) hosted by Return on Influence author Mark Schaefer and What’s Trending? host Shira Lazar, respectively; and two interactive storytelling workshops where the attendees worked directly with the Story creative team to create real pieces of content for two brands: Weekly World News and The Blue Man Group.

A Day Like None Before It

Story COO Simon Kelly’s welcome address set the theme for the day. “Traditional methods [of advertising] aren’t working as well as they used to,” he explained. “Brands have to become publishers. They have to know their stories. And those stories have to be authentic.”

Well said.

Dumenco opened the day with an enlightening talk about how we’re all our own media empire, including a humorous anecdote about how the speed of media, Twitter in particular, is actually faster than the shock waves of a Virginia earthquake.

After Dumenco delivered the keynote speech, we began our morning panel. Mark Schaefer hosted the session where Michael Margolis (President, Get Storied), Steven Kotok (President, The Week) and Andrea Miller (CEO, YourTango) discussed the future of information in the post-advertising age. They determined that it’s important to invest in social media if you expect to have any presence or influence through these emerging channels. But, Margolis argued, “The moment you wear the label [of authenticity] on your sleeve, you become suspect.” I.e., don’t say you’re the real deal: Be the real deal.

After lunch, Professor Jerry Wind revealed the results of a Wharton School Future of Advertising Project study called “The Secrets of Viral Ads,” which explained why certain ads are more likely to spread than others. The factors? As he concluded, they need to be surprising, cute, creative and emotional. He then asked the audience to break into groups to brainstorm an idea that could go viral. (One response: a kitten that speaks in a deep, husky voice. Did I mention it was a fun day?)

Our afternoon panel focused on the future of entertainment. Shira Lazar led Tom Thai (VP of Marketing, Bluefin Labs), Josh Richman (VP of Marketing, WGN America) and David-Michel Davies (Webby Awards/IWNY) through the hour-long session. The group discussed the uncertain road ahead. “Nobody knows what they should be doing,” Davies said. “There are so many options, and it’s really difficult to figure out what your audience wants.” But they also concluded that people weren’t watching less TV; they were watching more video (via the internet) at work—something they could never do before. The entertainment industry wasn’t far from the point where you’d be able to turn on the TV to watch cable or online videos.

Interactive Storytelling Workshops

Perhaps the audience’s (and my) favorite parts of the conference were the two workshops: “A Useful Piece of Content” in the morning and “A Creative Piece of Content” in the afternoon. These workshops, cornerstones (can you have multiple cornerstones?) of the event, is what truly made this different from every other marketing event. Instead of just talking about the past, present, and future of marketing, we attempted (successfully, if I may say so myself) to put pen to paper and help two brands find their story platform and actually execute that story with a real piece of content developed in real-time by the Story creative team.

In the first we took the Weekly World News through our strategic process to find it its Story platform. Led by Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, the group voted on its brand archetype (“The Trickster”) and debated over the platform. In the end we arrived at “Unreal Fascination.” Then the creative team took to work! They storyboarded an iPhone application that allowed followers to get real-time updates of unnatural occurrences in the area. See the output below:

The afternoon workshop was sponsored by the Blue Man Group and led by Votiv President Randy Irwin. BMG’s creative director Puck Quinn got us started by introducing who and what the Blue Men really were. Then we entered our metaphor process: “The Blue Man Group is like X because Y.” Some gems were “The Blue Man Group is like a brain, because it makes connections,” “The Blue Man Group is like a tattoo, because you wake up and it’s still there” and “The Blue Man Group is like wine, because it never tastes the same to two people and makes you feel differently.” And what did we create? Take a look!

From the beautiful setup at the Cult Studios to the open-minded, interactive nature of the obviously forward-thinking audience, the event was nothing less than a smashing success (and really fun time!). “I’m blown away by the caliber of attendees that joined us at our very first Post-Advertising Summit,” said Jon Thomas, Story Worldwide Communications Director and producer the event. “The audience as a whole became an extension of each session, asking insightful and thought provoking questions to our panelists and fearlessly diving headfirst into our hands-on workshops. I couldn’t be happier with how the day turned out.”

Real-Time Conversations, Outputs and More

The live conversations during the Summit were followed virtually via the #PASummit Twitter hashtag. The highlights of the hashtag have been curated on Storify, which you can see here.

Along with the workshop outputs, Simon Dumenco’s Keynote presentation and Jerry Yoram’s viral video study findings can be found on our SlideShare page.

Thank you!

On behalf of the entire Post-Advertising and Story Worldwide staff, I want to thank all of you who took part in the event. It’s a big step forward for content marketing and brand storytelling. Till next year!

From a marketer’s perspective, The Lorax’s awkward corporate love-fest, and the resulting backlash, prove that it’s now imperative to define your brand’s story platform—the core narrative at the heart of your brand, where all promotions and marketing should tie back to and stay true to. Read up on The Lorax’s worst offense yet, the overall saga, and other exploits in nostalgic cinema after the jump.

While The Lorax’s producers, Universal Pictures, have forged suitable partnerships with eco-conscious companies like Seventh Generation, Whole Foods and the Environmental Protection Agency; the likes of Mazda, IHOP and Comcast also made the cut. In fact, the film has taken on nearly 70 sponsors. Cue Mazda’s CX-5 SUV ripping through streets paved into Truffula Forest; Lorax-approved Xfinity TV service; Truffula Chip pancakes. Some, like Triple Pundit, have cried greenwashing. Greenwashing, meaning the disingenuous tactic used by marketers to form a faulty impression that a company’s policies or products are eco-friendly. In the case of 2012’s Lorax, this means shilling for brands that provide coin, but aren’t necessarily in line with genuine green practices.

The film itself has gone on to great success at the box office, but the choices made in its promotion have effectively weakened the framework of the classic story and greatly reduced the credibility of the content being offered. For the brands that sponsored the film without taking a good, hard look at what their own story is, consumers have been quick to point out their missteps. (Tip: look harder next time.)

CNN.com published an article on The Lorax which included a sampling of the outrage from bloggers and parents. One profiled parent has refused to take her children to see the movie on the grounds that the advertising in question contradicts the original story’s core message. Smosh added their two cents by wondering out loud what the original tale would have looked if corporate dollars had been behind it. Elsewhere, full protest campaigns have been launched, such as Rethinking the Automobile’s #SaveLorax.

A rundown of the various Lorax-related marketing offenses.

THE LORAX’S WORST OFFENSE YET

By far the worst instance of The Lorax’s strange, ill-fitting marketing is the shameless promotion currently being carried out at schools across the country in lockstep with Mazda. The Read Across America Tour (“Driven by Mazda”) brings a life-size Lorax to classrooms to read to children. The Lorax himself then donates a $1,000 check (courtesy of Mazda) to the school. All well and good, right? That is, until everyone’s ushered outside to test-drive Mazda’s slick new truffula tree-approved vehicles! The kicker? Mazda is dangling, in front of impressionable children, the chance to win a trip to Universal Studios if they’re able to persuade their parents to test drive one of the brand’s vehicles. (They’ll also donate $25 to the NEA’s public school foundation.) Doesn’t sound very Seuss-like to me.

Even if this was a competitive reality TV show (which it certainly sounds like), Mazda would be asking for some seriously bad karma—but they’re carrying out their campaign within school grounds. Did they think their methods would go unnoticed? Stephen Colbert, The Atlantic, CNN and CNBC certainly have. Worse, the Lorax acts as the inside man during all this, enticing excited schoolchildren with his tales before selling them on the very machines that are largely responsible for the mess we’re in as a planet.

The Read Across America tour is especially troublesome, considering the lessons Dr. Seuss’ original story hoped to impart. Think of it this way: if the right student—who actually managed to get the message of the story amidst all the meddlesome marketing—confronted the Mazda representatives and called out the carmaker, and his/her parents happened to be filming, Mazda (not to mention Universal’s Lorax) would be in for a world of viral hurt. Not that media coverage of their clumsily constructed partnership hasn’t taken its toll on the carmaker already.

Fast Company’s Co.EXIST hit on the basic storytelling faux pas present in a piece on the scholastic crusade—how far off-message Mazda is by even being involved: “Mazda (and many other of the film’s corporate sponsors) are missing the point. The Lorax wouldn’t drive a car; he would probably ride a bike. Or just walk.”

A RESURGENCE IN NOSTALGIA

The Lorax is not alone as a relic of the past being unearthed and reimagined for modern times. Over the past decade, Hollywood has seemingly focused as much on telling new stories as they have on adapting and remaking well-loved classics. Stories that are near and dear to a generation, as a reflection of their collective childhood. From Karate Kid to Total Recall; The Lorax to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, everything old is suddenly new again. Do it right, and you’ll reignite passion and bridge a gap between generations eager to share something together. Botch the promotion by straying too far from the original story’s meaning—such as with The Lorax—and you’ll risk disappointing the very audience you hope to enthuse. A lack of confidence may not come out when the content is first released, it’s something the stays after the dust has settled—and, when the next offering nears release day.

Disney may be onto something with their true-to-form re-releases of children’s classics like Beauty and the Beast with updated technology. Titanic employed a similar tactic when returning to theaters to help celebrate a historic milestone. But let’s not forget George Lucas’s efforts to tinker with the original Star Wars trilogy when the films were remastered the first time around. The series’ fervent fanbase noticed the changes immediately, crying foul and turning sour on the new versions. Again, that didn’t, by any means, spell disaster come payday, but there’s since been an air of distrust and negativity from diehard fans associated with the series creator.

Most recently, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans—a series cherished by 80’s babies—were in an uproar over news that the series reboot would rewrite the franchise’s origin story. Furthermore, it would now simply be called Ninja Turtles. The outrage grew so loud that Michael Bay (the project’s producer) had to issue a public statement defending the film’s scriptwriters, director and overall direction. All in an effort to assure fans that the movie will ring true.

LESSONS IN STORYTELLING

Don’t disrespect the story. Now, with the advent of the playing field-leveling powers of social media, voices expressing reason and outrage can move mountains. Whether it’s a beloved, long-running television series or a new piece of branded content, it’s as much owned by fans as it is the original creators. For those who hope to capitalize on treasured franchises for new commercial success, tread carefully. Choose your brand partnerships wisely. People hold their favorite stories near and dear. To weaken the framework that upholds your original story is to damage your brand’s credibility and weaken trust in it and any future endeavors.

Here’s the larger marketing implication: as more brands begin to literally become their story, it’s imperative that all executions tie back to a unified, credible story platform—the defining statement about your brand that keeps elements aligned and the core narrative always in mind. (More on that here.) This should be as important to the folks behind The Lorax as the brands who’ve cheerfully associated themselves with it: partaking in something that’s not true to your story and mission is more than disingenuous to your audience—it’s dangerous to your reputation. These days, trust is the only real asset a brand has. Marketers must do everything in their power to preserve it.

But this is not unusually low for Facebook Pages; in fact, it’s quite average. Most brands are very successful in generating Likes but fail to keep their fans talking. When it comes to real success for a brand on Facebook, in the end, engagement numbers mean a lot more than total Likes—a number that often speaks more to the size of the brand’s media buy and not to the quality of their content. As such, Talking About This is actually a far more valuable metric and tool than total Likes are. Here’s why.

There are many ways to get a Like on Facebook—a paid advertisement, incentivized deals, fan-only contests, etc. But whether hard won or bought by the thousand, this number doesn’t reflect true fan interest and engagement. Yes, when total Likes spike, so too does overall engagement (likes/comments/shares), but it’s usually an altogether temporary side effect to ad spend. At first, new fans will explore the Page and interact with its content with a fresh-faced burst of enthusiasm for the subject matter, perhaps also feeling excited about the prospect of a contest or promotion. But eyes start to wander as content wears thin, becomes stale or disinteresting to them. Users won’t bother to ‘Unlike’ the Page, but they will forget about it entirely. Dissatisfaction—conscious or otherwise—with the brand will linger. It is the ongoing presence (in spirit) of these disinterested fans that create such low engagement percentages. And rightfully so.

What matters more than a headcount is how heads interact with the Page once they have liked it, a phase dubbed “the Afterlike” by Crowdly. In the Afterlike phase, content is what matters. Don’t expect fans to stick around and participate with mediocre posts and generic tabs. Now, more than ever, brands must impress fans—and do it under increasingly fierce competition for every comment, every inch of News Feed real estate. A brand’s personality and unique story must shine through in each content offering. Hitting the right note can be difficult, but brands with unique perspectives and something interesting to say will resonate with consumers. Are you knowledgeable? Quirky? Romantic? Define your identity, and then broadcast it to the world. Make consumers remember you and look forward to your updates. Brands that achieve this status will have consistently higher engagement percentages when compared to discombobulated, soulless and/or purely promotion-driven Pages.

Actual Engagement = People Talking About This / Total Likes

Let’s take a step back to talk about the ratio that creates this important metric.

The People Talking About This metric measures unique user interaction with a Page over a seven-day period. This includes liking a Page, posting on the Timeline, answering a question, commenting, sharing, etc. One interaction per fan over the course of a week doesn’t seem like a lot to ask – a comment takes only a few seconds, after all, and seven days is a long time in the world of social media. And yet this can be very difficult to achieve.

Lady Gaga, one of the most popular current musicians, has a 0.9% engagement rate. Facebook itself slides in with a measly 0.6%. Sure, these Pages attract a lot of attention (over 40 million fans each), but that doesn’t mean they’re the most riveting and engaging communities on Facebook. Of course, a Page with more fans requires a larger talking about number to tip your engagement ratio, but that doesn’t excuse the vast majority of your fan base being inactive. (Who’s to say you, as a mega brand, shouldn’t clean house at this point?) You could have a super-dedicated fan base on a 300-fan Page with a 40% engagement rate because the fans are truly immersed and interested. The goal is to strike a balance somewhere in between. You want a large number of fans because this will help your messaging reach a wide group of people, but if a good deal of these fans aren’t listening and interacting, then you may as well be talking to a stadium full of earplug-wearing seat warmers.

Here are few brands on Facebook that strike a good balance.

YourMother, a fan Page dedicated to How I Met Your Mother and its syndication on WGN America, has a remarkable engagement rate of 21% with over 1,000,000 fans. (Full disclosure: WGN America is a Story Worldwide client.) We attribute this to the many dedicated, obsessive, enthusiastic fans of the show who react strongly to well-informed, relevant content about the show they know and love. Plus, the proof is in the pudding: Pages publishing great aggregated and original content often achieve virality scores over 1 percent. By posting twice, or even three times per day, YourMother ensures that fans keep interested, and that the Page content stays at the top of newsfeeds and at top of mind.

The New York Knicks are another strong example. At the height of Linsanity, the Page had an engagement percentage of 21%. It now hovers around 5.7%, which is still far above average. With a talented young team, the brand is inherently interesting, and their frequent postings (around 3 per day, often in real time) go a long way in encouraging fan engagement. Posts consistently earn thousands of Likes because they favor colorful photos, game stats, and links to articles.

Brands on Facebook have long been focused on total Likes as the be-all and end-all of metrics, but I think this overall engagement ratio is something closer to reality—a more accurate reflection of true fan interaction. A high percentage here is well worth reaching for.

Great overall Facebook engagement is hard to find—and for good reason. In fact, we challenge to you find any Facebook Pages that have high engagement rates. Anything over 5% gets a pat on the back. Over 20% and you get a cookie.

Which brands are winning on Facebook in your opinion? Can you show us some brands with great engagement percentages? How important is the talking about metric to you?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll pull back the curtain and teach attendees how to truly unearth their brand’s story. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more will be on hand to share their expertise. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today! Use code “PABLOG” for $100 off!

In a world where influence and clout (or, Klout, I guess) is measured by reach, a social network that expressly limits the number of connections a user can have is almost audacious in this day of age. Or is it just what we need?

Enter: The Anti-Social Network

Originally founded as a mobile-only photo sharing application by Facebook executive Dave Morin and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning a little over a year ago, Path—A modern journal that helps you share life with close friends and family—has grown into a full fledged social network with a twist. Path is very serious about it’s approach to building a platform for a “personal network.”

The idea is to create a more intimate social networking experience – and when you think about it, it makes sense.  People are much more likely share personal information with 150 of their closest friends on Path than, say, 500 friends and acquaintances (many of whom may be people they barely know or probably haven’t seen in years) on Facebook. This may seem like bad strategy – especially in the world of social media, where success is based on the number of people using your site – but in December, the mobil app’s user basea reportedly grew from 10,000 to 300,000 daily active users in two and a half weeks, and, as of December, 2011, over 1.5 million and a people have downloaded the Path app.

Intrusion vs. Exclusion

Facebook’s ever changing and arguably confusing privacy policies coupled with their recent integration of Premium Ads into a user’s social feed could be a tipping point that pushes users to rethink their approach to keeping a “social journal.” Are we predicting a mass-exodus from Facebook? No. However, it’s not out of the question to think that in the near future we’ll see social-saavy users shifting from open sharing and limited privacy amongst a large network of mostly friends and acquaintances to a highly private, close-ended network of a smaller number of friends—and that’s just what Path is banking on.

Privacy Problems

Any Google search for “Path” will undoubtedly expose the app’s recent claim to fame: Exposed by a blogger Arun Thampi, Path had been uploading user address books to their servers without the user’s consent or knowledge. Not only that, the information was being stored unencrypted, in plain English.

Although Path never broke any privacy laws and followed all App Store terms and conditions, the breach of trust amongst the network and its user base was palpable. The consensus amongst the majority of users, including Thampi, was that Pat

h wasn’t doing anything nefarious with the information. In his initial response, Path CEO David Morin stated that uploading user address-books “is an industry best-practice,” however this is commonly an opt-in process.

Morin and the team at Path have since made a public apology and all user information has been deleted from Path’s servers. Upon setup, users will now see an opt-in screen to access contacts.

WHAT PATH MEANS FOR BRANDS

The options for brands on networks like Instagram and Path have been widely discussed but rarely agreed upon. Numerous brands have found success on Instagram simply by using it as a channel to provide content that their audiences want. But can Path provide more for audiences than just pictures and check-ins? Will audiences want to follow brands on Path? Or should brands focus on encouraging their loyal audiences to share their own experiences with the brand on Path? If so, Path could be a fertile ground for brands. The whole idea of creating an intimate social network means that Path users are going to trust what they see on Path much more than other social networks.

So what are your thoughts on Path? Will their so-called intimate approach to social networking give them an edge over other social media platforms? What place does Path have in the post-advertising world?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll pull back the curtain and teach attendees how to truly unearth their brand’s story. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more will be on hand to share their expertise. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today! Use code “PABLOG” for $100 off!

Monday, March 5^th saw the launch of the most successful viral marketing campaign in history, branded or otherwise. Nonprofit organization Invisible Children published their KONY 2012 campaign video, taking the social media world by storm. On the day it was launched, the video was practically unavoidable. It seemed nearly everyone posted it on every type of page and platform. With over 100 million views on YouTube and Vimeo combined in only one week, the video has reached iconic status as the most viral video of all time.

While the video has since sparked a powder keg of intense political debate, there’s another side of this moment that shouldn’t get lost in the arguments: Agree or disagree with the message, no one can argue that the marketing of the campaign is anything but outrageously successful. To help isolate lessons from the campaign that can benefit anyone trying to tell a story in social media, we spoke with Pat Walsh, co-founder and CMO of StayClassy.org, the social fundraising platform behind Invisible Children, for his insight on the campaign’s virality.

Here are five lessons that brands can take away from Invisible Children’s monumental social media campaign:

1. Stories Definitely Matter

With the video’s success, predictably, came significant criticism, but there’s no questioning the primary lesson learned from the San Diego-based nonprofit’s experiment in social activism: Everyone (like every brand) has a story, and those who tell it best, win.

Invisible Children were able to turn their eight-year mission into a compelling story that pulled at the heartstrings of millions. They told the story in a way that nearly everyone watching the video could understand, regardless of age or knowledge. Some have argued that it was too naive, oversimplifying a complex problem. However, if Invisible Children were going to create a video that could both keep the audience’s attention and spark a worldwide movement, the story had to be gripping and easy to understand to be effective

2. Don’t try this at home

The knee-jerk reaction of most anyone who yearns for viral success is to try and replicate the idea. But this is no nyan cat. This video has been nearly a decade in the making, and the depth (and 30 minute length) of the story makes it difficult to replicate with any amount of success. “I have no doubt that the success of the video (seen by more people than any single TV show this week) will lead many organizations astray in the naive belief that they can emulate this one,” said Seth Godin. “If a non-profit board decides to spend precious resources on a video hoping it will change the world in three days, I think they’re misguided.”

However, that’s not to say that brands, particularly nonprofits, have no chance at creating a groundswell that effects change. “One of the greatest effects of KONY2012 is that it’s inspired people to get involved and champion the causes they’re passionate about – whether that’s removing a 3rd world warlord or supporting something more personal to them,” explains Pat Walsh, co-founder and CMO of StayClassy.org. “Hopefully the long-lasting momentum of this campaign will continue to drive young leaders to advocate on behalf of social and humanitarian injustices at every level throughout the world.”

3. Define clear goals

Invisible Children’s success put them under the microscope. Alongside their success, Invisible Children has faced harsh criticism in the last week over a wide range of issues, one of which questioned the effectiveness of the video.

While the video ends with a clear call to action to order action kits (at $30 a piece, or free with a recurring donation), Invisible Children has openly acknowledged that their overarching goal as a nonprofit (and the goal of the Kony 2012 video) is to raise awareness, and no one can argue that the video hasn’t accomplished that. Opponents, however, have said that regardless of video views, this is pointless “slacktivism.” Viewers watch, share, and go back to their lives having felt as though they were social activists for a minute. But the content itself shouldn’t bear the burden of ROI. You can quibble about how much money it did or didn’t bring in (they have run out of $30 kits), but that’s not the point. The point is that a vast majority of the globe now knows about this issue and, most importantly, knows who Joseph Kony is. Invisible Children set out to make him famous, largely fueled by this video, and that’s exactly what was achieved.

4. Give your audience clear calls to action

Creating compelling content can be very effective, but if you don’t give your audience a clear call to action at the end, your audience’s journey with your brand may end right there. Around the 22-minute mark, the narrator (co-founder Jason Russel) proclaims, “We know what to do. Here it is. Ready?” The final seven minutes lays out Invisible Children’s goals and, specifically, what they want the audience to do:

1. Order an action kit
2. Donate a few dollars a month
3. Reach out to culture-makers and politicians to show that you care
4. On April 20^th, paint your town or city with the posters and stickers in the action kit

Not everybody is willing or able to be deeply involved in an issue, but if you give your audience easy ways to begin their involvement with the project, they might find themselves becoming more passionate than they thought they were.

But sometimes asking isn’t enough. You have to make it very easy for them to do what you’re asking. If you want them to share your infographic with their social networks, make sure there are social sharing buttons nearby. If you want them to donate, show them exactly where they need to go to donate and even ask for a specific amount. The KONY2012 site makes it easy for people to tweet at the culture- and policy-makers with the click of a mouse (along with a pre-written tweet, which provides a thank-you if they’ve already tweeted).

But will this viral spread translate to real-world in time for the declared group action date of April 20? “I think it already has,” Walsh says. “Invisible Children has brought an elevated level of awareness and a new call to action to a long-standing silent war. As a result of the campaign, media organizations like NBC Nightly News are sending teams to Africa to further investigate and build awareness around the issues. Politicians are coming out in strong support of taking action. Invisible Children’s awareness tactics have led to tangible action in the past, and I think this latest campaign has the momentum to make their largest impact yet.”

5. Ensure that your audience sees themselves in your story

When your audience can see themselves in your story, the burden of persuading them disappears. The Kony video had a variety of characters that made it easily relatable to viewers of all ages. When we saw Jason’s son, we saw our own sons and/or daughters. When college-aged kids (the primary target audience) saw the video, they saw the hundreds of other kids who look just like them painting the streets with Kony posters.

Of course, you can’t do this for every audience. This video had a negative reaction from those in the areas of Uganda where Joseph Kony’s reign was the worst. That’s an understandable reaction who those who have lived through true suffering, but to be fair, they weren’t the target audience. Invisible Children targeted an audience that could immediately respond to their call of action to share, reach out, and donate. Judging by the rapid sharing of the video, it obviously resonated with the audiences they targeted.

Through all of this, it can’t be forgotten that global storytelling has a long tail. If Rebecca Black is still getting work, then we can expect that Invisible Children’s message will be around well into 2013 and beyond. It’s this widespread success and awareness that may motivate politicians to act. It’s not perfect, but the story is simply too effective to ignore.

For anyone trying to tell a story, the main lesson to be gained from the Kony campaign is to make sure your story is compelling for your target audience. Your brand may not create the next viral sensation, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have your own story to tell—you simply need to determine how to tell it in a way that captivates and compels audiences to share.

Why do you think the Kony 2012 video went viral so quickly? What else can be learned?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll pull back the curtain and teach attendees how to truly unearth their brand’s story. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more will be on hand to share their expertise. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today! Use code “PABLOG” for $100 off!

Facebook users don’t often warmly embrace shifts in their social media routine, so it’s only natural to wonder how Facebook’s 845 million users will react to these game-changing announcements. What will it take to make sure these new ad formats don’t backfire on branders?

A look at the four new ad types:

While news feed ads actually launched in January, the official announcement came at fMC. (Image)

Ads + News Feed: Integration or Infiltration?

The most notable announcement at fMC—besides Timeline for Pages, which was revealed shortly before the event—was the full launch of the news feed-fed advert. Yes, you can now experience the blissful feeling associated with forced advertisements from the comfort of your news feed!

Let’s be real: this type of ad is nothing new in social media. We’ve seen similar solutions offered by Twitter for some time now (Promoted Trends, Promoted Accounts, Promoted Tweets), and blogs have long used advertisements between posts and paragraphs. But it’s hard to see Facebook users readily embracing the new, similar style adverts. These ads actually make sense on Twitter—not so much on Facebook. Since they’ll be brand new additions to a feature that’s been used obsessively by millions for years now the spots are bound to feel more like interruptions than invitations to engage.

The Right Way

In reality, there are ways to make the new ad formats work, but it’ll take careful consideration and the right brand. Jamming an ad into a person’s social life is no more than traditional interruption-based marketing in a digital setting. It’s not much different than a commercial or billboard. It’s on a computer, but that’s about the biggest difference. In order for this strategy to pay off, your messages are going to need to be seamlessly integrated into the news feed.

Disclaimer: Facebook is not liable for brand damage inflicted if ads are executed improperly. (Image)

How can these new formats be used productively? Through pitch-perfect editorial content and carefully considered media buys. If these newly integrated ads are going to have a chance, they will need to blend in fluidly and do their best to become a seamless part of the conversation. If done well, there is potential for these ads to grab a viewer’s interest and to take more Facebook users to a company’s page. Otherwise, it’s too easy for a reader to scroll past an ad, especially if it’s irrelevant. Worst case: the poorly done, poorly placed ad will anger the masses, leading to unlikes in droves and very active, very public disdain.

Signing Out?—But Wait, There’s More!

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Another announcement for Facebook is the addition of log-out advertisements. When a user logs out, an ad will soon appear on the log-out screen. Facebook announced that around 37 million people log out of Facebook on a daily basis.

Reaching that large of an audience sure seems nice—especially for a freshly minted IPO—but every corner on every page doesn’t need to be filled with ads. Sure, it’s otherwise empty space, but is utilizing that empty space worth annoying potential consumers? Or is it just as (if not more) beneficial for Facebook to keep this page clean, making the site itself more inviting, leading users to interact more with the ads on their news feed?

With that said, one proposed advertiser, Bing, makes a little more sense for these log-out page ads. Chances are if a user is leaving Facebook they have something else to do. And if that something else happens to be a quick web search, the page is already right there. It’s one example that actually works.

How Bing’s placement on the Facebook logout/login screen looks. (Image)

Anger or Joy: The Choice is Yours

Inserting ads into users’ social lives isn’t going to be a boon by itself. It’s not the silver bullet that unfocused, ill-equipped brands, blinded by the promise of social media, have been searching for. Making these ads engaging and seamlessly integrated into news feeds will be the key. If you can’t pull that off, the ones you’ve spammed—because it’s now truly spam—will be happy to let you know how they feel about it.

How do you think the average Facebook user will respond to the introduction of these new ad formats?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll pull back the curtain and teach attendees how to truly unearth their brand’s story. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more will be on hand to share their expertise. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today! Use code “PABLOG” for $100 off!

Well, maybe that’s not such a hot scoop, but when you add the words online and social media, the ears of brand managers everywhere start to perk up. According to a new study, nearly two thirds of people on social networks are engaging in “profile pruning,” carefully curating their own social profiles by deleting posts, comments, tags and friends. In order to stay in the fertile flower beds of young social-media users, brands must follow their rules to avoid getting pruned. Cue gardening metaphors.

Rule 1: I want my friends to think I’m cool

People are pruning their profiles because they want others to see them in a certain way, plain and simple. Whether it’s deleting drunken college photos to seem “office cool” or unliking a recently popular musician to be “under-the-radar cool,” young people are constantly thinking about their online reputations. This means that brands must attempt to be interesting and relevant in the social sphere.

We understand that not every brand belongs in the upper echelon of millennial cool with Levi’s and Apple, but there are definitely ways of becoming your own unique and demographically appealing type of cool. It’s good to post about your products and services—that is essentially what you are trying to sell—but you should also be aware of trends in the world around you and embrace a wide range of ideas.

Social-media outlets like Pinterest have demonstrated that brands shouldn’t constantly peddle their products. Rather, they must give off a brand glow, creating a feeling that represents their true brand identity and personality. Consumers will connect with this identity much more than with an individual product or service. If you are lucky, they will then make your brand identity part of their own identity by continuously engaging with your social-media outlets.

Rule 2: I want people to pay attention to me

Just as a flower needs water, people need interaction and attention (I warned you about the metaphors). Brands should embrace the human desire to be loved and interact with their fans, just as a real friend responds to a gesture. Someone wrote on your Wall? Respond. Someone tweeted at you? Re-tweet or reply. It’s that simple. Responding online is like giving fans a pat on the back, essentially saying, “We understand you and respect your opinions.” Fans will prune you from their profiles if they feel that you don’t like or trust them, just like people cutting their fickle friends from their social circles. Responding to posts will keep your online and offline relationship alive.

Rule 3: I want to find cool stuff and share it with my friends

We always preach the importance of content marketing. And we all know the old advice to create engaging, unique content for your consumers. But when it comes to profile pruning, this is truly essential. Fans will quickly lose interest if they find your posts uninteresting or uninspiring. Facebook and Twitter users want their news feeds to be full of brilliant insights and fun content. If your messaging isn’t up to snuff, users won’t hesitate to cut you off. Think of it this way: In your own social profiles, would you be engaged by the kind of content you are putting out? If not, why would your fans? They won’t give you endless chances to impress. They don’t have the time or patience.

Rule 4: Yeah, I want freebies. But that’s not all I want

Money-saving promotions are a sure-fire way to get likes and re-tweets. Facebook ads with coupon or discount messaging often catch the eye of a stingy user. But once the promotion ends, fan engagement often stops. This isn’t good. A brand admired only for its coupons won’t be successful in the long term. Yes, you can entice people with giveaways and discounts, but you have to keep them interested with ongoing content in order for your brand to really resonate. Unless your brand is all about constant discounts, à la Gilt or Groupon, you cannot keep fans engaged through monetary promotions alone.

Rule 5: I am always searching for something new

Stale content never does well online. It’s a fast-paced world, and users don’t have a lot of tolerance for outdated marketing strategies or rehashing of old ideas. Do something new and interesting. Don’t be afraid to take some risks when it comes to outlining your online brand identity. Setting yourself apart from the competition online will give your brand something unique and identifiable that will resonate with consumers. Being the first to do something online is a powerful tool, and it proves that your brand is current, social and now.

Do you have any horror stories about mass profile pruning? Which brands are doing a good job of keeping fans engaged?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll pull back the curtain and teach attendees how to truly unearth their brand’s story. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more will be on hand to share their expertise. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today! Use code “PABLOG” for $100 off!

If you’re cool enough to call yourself a follower of @PostAdvertising, you no doubt noticed that we were in attendance last Wednesday at the first-ever IN-NW Social Media Conference, in Seattle. Exceptional panels, ranging from those on nonprofit- and cause-based engagement to those on new-media storytelling and musicians gone social, were complemented by enlightening talks by Alexandra Wheeler of Starbucks, Rob Pietsch of Twitter and Ben Huh of the Cheezburger Network (who delivered an impassioned defense of the Internet). That said, one of the day’s most intriguing insights—that the second screen is finally ready for prime time—came in an off-hand observation by David Tedman of Invoke Media (the ones responsible for HootSuite) during a panel on new and emerging tools. Tedman’s mentioning the real-life example of his company’s work with The Voice led to what follows below: our exhaustive report on the efforts of a few television networks that’ve used or are currently using the notion of the second screen to engage viewers in new ways and in record numbers.

Simply put, the second screen means watching your television while tapping away on your iPad. The secondary screen (be it tablet, phone or laptop) is one that a user interacts with while simultaneously consuming media via a primary device (most likely a television or movie screen). Mere years ago the concept may well have seemed impossible, or unlikely at best: how could anyone be expected to engage with media while simultaneously consuming it? Now with the help of smart apps, like GetGlue, Shazam, Viggle and IntoNow, as well as an approach at the outset that stresses full—and I mean full—integration of all channels, the future of broadcast media is suddenly upon us.

1. THE VOICE

Of all the television shows gracing major television networks these days, nobody is second screening more than NBC’s The Voice. It’s done the most work to actively incorporate social channels into the actual cable broadcast and encourage real-time discussion during showtime every Monday evening as well as before and after the main screen action. Having launched its second season hot on the heels of the 2012 Super Bowl (another huge event for the second screen), it’s since made tightly integrated social components part of its value proposition to new fans and part of the way it hopes to hook fans and transform passive viewers into active participants.

What’s most readily apparent when you’re watching The Voice (at this stage in the competition) is the show’s use of Twitter content from its stable of celebrity “coaches” during strategic points in each episode. As events unfold on the show (such as when a contestant chooses a coach), a relevant tweet from the celebrity is displayed , thus adding color and giving fans a bit of added insight.

But that’s not the whole story. An analysis of the February 20th episode of The Voice reveals that celebrity coach Cee Lo Green didn’t tweet once during the episode (although his cat, a running joke on the show, has its own social-media presences on Facebook and Twitter). Christina Aguilera, another Voice judge, tweeted just twice during the show (both were shown on air); Adam Levine’s Twitter feed was also surprisingly sparse. Coach Blake Shelton was the only coach to consistently and realistically tweet along with the show. Elsewhere, the show’s official Twitter account, @NBCTheVoice, did do an admirable job of live tweeting the episode—although such activity is to be expected, and should be required, of any official TV show on Twitter that’s also currently on the air.

NBC’s airing of various celebrity tweets immediately following specific events (and referencing said events) cannot possibly be being done in real time, given the various legal constraints and the suspiciously short time between event and corresponding tweet. The tweets are most likely penned beforehand (perhaps not even by the celebs themselves) and scheduled to coincide with precise moments on the show. And of course the show is taped in advance, meaning that seemingly too-good-to-be-true moments from Monday night—such as when Cee Lo Green whipped out his BlackBerry and typed away, prompting a tweet to appear—may offend observant viewers.

While show personalities can’t be expected to faithfully employ social media in real time, and while preplanned content is to some degree a logistical necessity, there is a clear disconnect when you see how these celebrities actually handle their personal Twitter accounts.

See the bottom of this post for our Storify feed of social coverage from the February 20th episode of The Voice.

Also, in what must be a historic first for social media, NBC hired another celebrity, Christina Milian, as The Voice’s very own social media correspondent, charged with “bridging the on-air experience of The Voice with the online experience and bringing viewers closer to the competition.” Besides tweeting and posting during the show on her own social properties (she has a healthy following on Twitter), Milian appears in on-air promos for The Voice’s social presence (segments that beg for second-screen engagement with the live show). She also produces supplemental content (off-the-air interviews with contestants, candid blog posts) that provides extra value. The fact that NBC values social and the second screen enough to pay a celebrity to be the face of such efforts show that it’s taking digital content and fan engagement seriously.

Last, there’s The 5th Coach. Mentioned by David Tedman of Invoke Media during IN-NW, The 5th Coach is a Facebook game-app that’s deeply rooted in the television show’s proceedings. In what amounts to a fantasy-sports game for talent-competition shows, fans are asked to recruit singers from previous episodes of the show. Points (and weekly prizes) are awarded if your picks make it through to subsequent rounds. The grand prize? A trip to L.A. to meet the season’s winning contestant.

Interestingly enough, little has been done thus far to promote the dynamic fantasy-style fan game across The Voice’s various other social platforms—especially in terms of second-screen-level integration. Only one tweet sent during this past week’s episode referenced the game. While The 5th Coach is reactionary in nature, with game play dependent on the outcome of each television episode, surely some effort should be made on behalf of the official Twitter account to incubate its #5thCoach hashtag. Time will tell whether NBC’s ambitious social game proves to be a flop.

2. THE GRAMMY AWARDS

According to social-TV analytics published by Bluefin Labs, This year’s Grammy Awards show was the most rabidly social program in television history;  13 million comments were tracked. The 54th annual music-award show easily eclipsed the previous record of 12.2 million set by the 2012 Super Bowl. How did the Grammys help attract this year’s record-setting level of conversation? With a number of highly social second-screen initiatives, of course.

The multi-platform Grammy Live initiative used in-depth supplemental content to extend the festivities to three days. Instead of being an archive of content from years past, it paired exclusive pre-taped content with live host introductions to whet the appetite and made backstage webcams available during the show itself. According to MoBlog’s Steve Smith, “much of the recorded material was contextually relevant and well-timed [with] the on-air content.” Available via the web or as an iOS app, the initiative alone garnered more than a million views.

CBS and the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences also employed its official partnership with song-recognition app Shazam to offer easy access to iTunes versions of live performances from the show in real time. Shazam not only identified the awards show but also directed users to a page dedicated to the event that featured links for downloading each performance as it happened, Twitter integration for scanning the conversation and a tool that gathered social insights in real time.

Marc DeBevoise, senior vice president and general manager of the Entertainment Division of CBS Interactive, touted the second-screen approach again and again when questioned by MediaPost about this year’s efforts. “There are a lot of guys touting second screens as their thing,” DeBevoise says. “They aren’t necessarily second screen; they don’t have a lot to offer.” In regard to his network’s deal with Shazam, he described it as “second-screen that can build on what is going on on-air.” In his words, it was “not just a light experience.”

3. WGN AMERICA

Full disclosure: WGN America is a Story Worldwide client.

WGN America, a superstation-style television network and the self-described Home of the SuperFan, has made great use of the second screen for one of its most popular programs, How I Met Your Mother. WGN America’s second screens for the hit comedy are YourMother and @MeetAtMaclarens, Facebook and Twitter fan pages dedicated to the show. Besides promoting the show at large, these properties mention upcoming episodes on WGN America and cross-promote with other network shows.

In the past year, WGN America has married social and broadcast screens by featuring fans’ comments, tweets and original content on the air during episodes, offering TV-screen tie-ins as part of second-screen contests, and by live tweeting with fans—not only during episodes of the show that are airing on WGN America but during new episodes on CBS as well, effectively extending the second-screen approach even further.

Attempts by NBC, CBS, and smaller networks, like WGN America, to integrate the screens of social and broadcast more tightly are, if anything, impressive votes of confidence for a new type of viewing experience. These recent examples offer a window onto a world where engagement with a single piece of featured original content on a number of levels has become a natural part of the consumption process. In this age of the empowered consumer, it’s practically an absolute that fans should be given the power to visibly, publicly interact with and affect the media they’re consuming. Tomorrow it’ll be required in order to uphold ratings.

It’s no longer enough to engage viewers with programming alone; you must now be active during the program on other channels. Similarly, a viewer should no longer be expected to sit through a program that offers no opportunities to be engaged with.

Do you think that the power of a traditional-media experience can be enhanced by the second screen?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll pull back the curtain and teach attendees how to truly unearth their brand’s story. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more will be on hand to share their expertise. In order to get the best price (Early-Bird discount ends February 29th), reserve your seat at the Summit table today! Use code “PABLOG” for $100 off!

We’ve all seen it before: Marketers create an innovative social media campaign only to have it squashed by the legal department into a bland, lifeless lump of the original idea. Sadly, many archaic legal departments are wary of social media at best and digitally illiterate at worst. Their fear of embracing these tools can be a barrier for brands that want to interact with their audiences in authentic, transparent and engaging ways. But that doesn’t mean brands shouldn’t sacrifice creativity (or throw out their old-school legal department) just yet.

The Brand Science Institute recently conducted a study of 563 marketers representing 52 brands in 12 European countries to better understand what goes wrong when a social media initiative is launched. They found that 76 percent of marketers feel that legal departments hinder new projects. We must draft a new set of rules to govern this broadening territory. The same regulations from years past simply do not apply anymore.

Unfortunately, there’s a great divide between real-world issues that legal departments face and what law schools are teaching (or rather not teaching about the impact of digital marketing and social media on corporate law). A new age of advertising requires a different kind of legal department: nimble enough to work in real time, privy to the ever-changing landscape and smart enough to know what’s appropriate in an arena unlike anything the brand has previously dealt with.

Living with Social Media

Social media is here to stay, whether legal likes it or not. Those that are too restrictive will ultimately hurt their brands. There will always be legal hurdles to jump when it comes to digital marketing, especially for more highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals and alcohol. Stringent legal restrictions make it so brands in these markets are often unable to follow best practices (or in some cases are barred from engaging through social media at all). But even the most red-flagged industries are slowly beginning to embrace these platforms as valuable tools; just last week an industry group released its own pharma-specific best practices for social media and user-generated health and medical content.

However, when a company first jumps on the social media bandwagon, its first campaign is typically a test (one that’s very conservative and regulated). If it fails for whatever reason, the company’s more likely to kill the campaign and put in place overly restrictive guidelines for future initiatives rather than give it another chance with fewer restrictions. Many lawyers imagine worst-case scenarios and are concerned with mitigating risk rather than the opportunity to innovate.

This must change. And there’s evidence that legal departments are starting to get with the times. But the fact is, many in-house legal departments still have never made decisions about social media before, and their comfort level with it is as low as their understanding.

Insight from Adrian Dayton, Legal Marketing Expert

“What they want is a precedent,” says Adrian Dayton, a self-proclaimed “evangelist of social media for the legal profession”. “So if you want to try something new, you have to be able to show something analogous that another company did successfully, that they didn’t get in trouble for. If you can show someone else is doing this, and not getting killed for it, that’s a pretty good argument.”

As a non-practicing lawyer, Dayton trains others in his field on how to use social media to grow both their own businesses and the companies they work for. In his experience, most law schools are very behind in teaching digital marketing, but he expects that within the next two to three years the majority of them will finally add a social media component to the curriculum.

“As legal departments, their job is always to protect the company and make sure nobody does anything that’s going to harm or hurt the value of the business,” Dayton says. “But they really have a greater responsibility when it comes to social media. And while they’re always going to have the job to protect, they also need to empower their marketing department to use these things the right way.”

Dayton reiterates the learnings we’ve gleaned from dealing firsthand with the in-house councils of brands in industries from automotive to alcohol to pharma and more. It’s essential that brand marketers learn to work with the in-house legal council, and the best way to do that is by establishing a clear social media policy. Additionally, getting to know the people within the legal department, understanding their fears and addressing such fears from the get-go (rather than during final rounds of creative) are key.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

It boils down to the need for collaboration between marketers and lawyers. There is no benefit to either party in a silo or adversarial approach. As legal departments become increasingly involved in social media campaigns (and maybe even sign up for personal accounts), it will become easier for brands to navigate this space agilely without the fear of stepping on a landmine.

When Chrysler came to Story Worldwide wanting to create a syndicated publishing model to captivate loyalists and newcomers alike, we were highly regulated as we developed brand blogs as well as the Dodge and Ram brands’ first forays into social media. However, quickly building trust gave us more freedom in our response work, and we created a hub where it was possible to cover relevant news in real time. In 2010, when Ram was named “Truck of the Year,” we gave online journalists access to the unfolding details and let them tweet questions. This real-time interaction between the brand and audience was only possible by developing a crisis-management system where inflammatory responses could be handled quickly via preapproved responses or forwarded to the proper client contacts if necessary.

With other brands we’ve shown that by leveraging preapproved responses for premeditated questions to increase response times on Facebook, we’ve been able to increase the amount of activity on the brand page fore more fluid conversations and lasting relationships. Some of our clients’ legal departments are already overbooked due to the volume of paid and owned content they must review—there’s just so much they can’t keep up. That’s why it’s vital to gain the trust of the brand manager and the legal staff for more flexibility to interact on behalf of the brand. Ideally, your social media manager will know the client’s product info and legal concerns so stone-cold that you create and phrase things in a way that legal doesn’t need to review the fast-paced social content.

Usually, it’s essential to get the legal department involved early on; leaving legal review until the final rounds of creative is recipe for disaster. In rare (and beloved) cases, social media managers are lucky enough to have a trusting client that agrees with creative without requiring legal approval beforehand. But more often than not, it’s possible to participate in this digital space only after you’ve earned a brand’s trust.

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 90 percent of business-to-business marketers, whether they realize it or not, market content in some way and invest 26 percent (on average) of their total budgets in content-marketing efforts. The digital era has provided brands with blogs, e-newsletters, social-media presences, webinars, podcasts, videos and more. All signs seem to point to content marketing being the new craze.

Only, content marketing is not new.

Content marketing can’t be the hot new trend. The term content marketing may be only a few years old, but creating useful or entertaining content (or both) for a brand’s audience has been a proven marketing technique for centuries. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Michelin Guides

Any tire manufacturer knows that the more that people travel in automobiles, the larger the demand for tires will be. In 1900, brothers Edouard and André Michelin decided to encourage tourists to travel to Paris by creating the Michelin Red Guide, a free publication offering useful travel advice. Ten years later they began printing maps. The Michelin Guide (and its iconic red cover) has been in print for more than 100 years.

Guinness Book of World Records

Who better to catalogue amazing human feats than a brewery? I mean, doesn’t alcohol give us all superpowers? In 1955, Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Breweries, realized that there wasn’t a definitive book containing “superlative facts and answers that would be of great use to the general public.” The first edition of his record book, the Guinness Book of World Records, printed that same year, became Britain’s number one best-seller, and the breweries’ name has been synonymous with notable feats ever since.

Jell-O’s Recipe Books

After buying the rights to Jell-O for $450 in the late 1880s, Frank Woodward had so much trouble turning a profit that he offered the rights to his plant superintendent for $35. Before selling, however, Woodward made a last-ditch effort to resurrect the brand by arming his salesmen with Jell-O recipe books to distribute free of charge. Giving customers a variety of ways to use the product endeared them to the brand, and sales rose enough for Woodward to be able to launch three more flavors within a decade.

The Lesson

What is there to learn from these content-marketing efforts of more than 60 years ago? It’s that content marketing isn’t a product of digital tools. While they’ve allowed brands to provide content to audiences in unique and cost-efficient ways, it’s not about the channels themselves. You don’t have to be on every new social platform simply because others have found success on it. While Pinterest is great, your hygiene product probably won’t be pinned on anyone’s board.

Instead of focusing on the channels, focus on connecting your audience with your brand’s story. What type of content does your brand have the authority to publish that would make your audience’s lives better, or happier, or more productive?

There’s no need to fear diving into the content-marketing ocean. Practically speaking, if you’re one of the 10 percent of marketers not engaging in some form of content marketing, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Michelin has a 112-year head start!

Do you have any other pre-digital examples of effective content marketing? Share with us in the comments.

(image via Michelin)

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

Viral videos seem so easy to make. I mean, even Rachel Black made one! However, the reality is that virality is ever-elusive. There’s no single equation. You can’t buy it anywhere. No internet marketer/video editor, no matter what they tell you, has the one formula to guarantee viral success. It’s not like six pack abs—those are sought after but there’s a clear formula. Eat well. Exercise often. That’s it. That’s the formula. You heard it here first. Just look at my abs as proof (please don’t).

But it is possible to create a video that goes “viral” (however you want to define “viral”). We may not be able to unearth the scrolls that house the secret formula, but we’re going to dig deep into why some videos have found success, and why audiences were so compelled to share. Here are 8 traits we found in some of the most successful viral videos.

Note: This isn’t comprehensive, nor exclusive. Also, just having any one or two of these traits doesn’t guarantee success.

1. Extremely Funny

Arguably the most common aspect of a viral video is humor. Audiences love to share videos that will make other people laugh. It’s human nature. But being funny isn’t easy, and many people have failed at this. If you put the effort into it though, it can be a huge benefit for your brand, like this video from John St., a Canadian advertising agency.

The flipside, and a legitimate concern for brands taking a shot at viral success, is that a video can unintentionally be funny, ending up as the butt of the joke. Rebecca Black uploaded her music video in hopes of pop stardom, but it reached viral status when the lyrics of the song were carefully dissected. “Fun, fun, fun, fun. Looking forward to the weekend!” Though it’s very arguable that it’s the best thing that has ever happened to her.

2. Something We Can All Relate To

When the content of videos appeal to a wider audience, the likelihood is much greater that someone is going to share the video throughout their social networks. A recent viral success, Sh*t Nobody Says is a prime example. A spinoff of the viral meme Sh*t Girls Say (which falls in both this and the previous category), this version found a topic that we can all relate to instead of the niche crowds the other spinoffs targeted (not that those don’t have value). Well written and acted, Sh*t Nobody Says spread like wildfire. I mean, does anyone understand taxes?

A subcategory of this would be “Something Useful.” There have been a number of videos that have seen viral success within their targeted communities by creating a video that the audience not only could relate to, but also found useful and shared with others that would appreciate the video. One such example is Janssen-Cilag’s (client) Living with ADHD video. The video wasn’t intended to reach millions (the audience is parents with children who have ADHD), but is considered one of Europe’s most successful pharma videos. Brands creating valuable content that audiences can use is a great way to encourage audiences to not only share but come back for more.

3. Exposing the Truth

One aspect of viral video success that seems to go under the radar is exposing the truth. Ever notice those crazy before and after weight loss pictures (specifically those you see as featured videos on YouTube)? Ever wonder if they’re real? Or if not, where the pictures come from? I came across a video that exposed how these body transformations happen, and this guy did it in 5 hours. Three days and over three million views later, the video was viral.

Of course, as Dominos will tell you, you can come out on the wrong end of a viral video exposing a sad truth. Luckily they were able to rebound with a quite effective ad campaign, but they were forced up against the ropes for a while.

4. Emotional

One of the best angles for brands to take is to weave an effective story into a video that draws emotion from the audience or targets a pain point they can relate to. A recent branded viral video (and a personal favorite of mine) came from the David Cornfield Melanoma Fund. Well written (you’ll notice it’s funny in the beginning to get/keep your attention, but gets serious at the right time) and well produced, the young nonprofit (founded in 2007) has had the English version of their video viewed over 5 million times. They also have Spanish, French and Russian subtitled versions.

Brands take note: The video includes real stories, and stories are powerful and inherently want to be shared.

5. Completely Unexpected

2010 saw one video go viral that had everyone saying, “What, what sound just came out of that man’s mouth?” The homeless man with the golden voice appeared on YouTube courtesy of a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch, and immediately Ted Williams’ life had completely changed. Nobody driving through that intersection would ever expect Williams’ voice to sound like that, and the sidewalk story in the latter half of the video helped create a piece of viral history.

6. Something You’ve Never Seen Before

Creativity is key when producing a video in hopes of viral marketing success. LA-based musical quartet OK Go are the poster children for creating videos with content so unique and amazing audiences are compelled to share it. They were so successful that we wrote a post outlining some of their secrets to success. In reaction to that post, the OK Go twitter account gave me this reply:

Here’s their latest video for their song “Needing/Getting” in which they partnered with Chevy (another way to leverage viral success). Over 7 million views in three days (thus far). I think they’ve got this viral thing down.

Brands like Old Spice have found success by creating sharable content unlike anything anyone has ever seen, although it’s difficult for me to categorize a national ad as a viral hit.

7. Interactive

Some brands utilized the interactive capabilities of YouTube to gain viral success. Both TippEx and Hell Pizza created a “Choose Your Own Adventure” series that garnered millions of views. TippEx put the fate of an unsuspecting bear in the hands of the viewer in their Hunter Shoots a Bear series. Hell Pizza painted an accurate picture of the inevitable 2012 apocalypse in their series where the viewer has to help a delivery man deliver a pizza to a woman trapped on top of a shipping crate surrounded by zombies. I mean, who hasn’t had that happen?

8. Right place, right time

These are the ones you can never predict, and it’s rare for a brand to take advantage of situations like this because the situations themselves are rare and inherently unpredictable. Videos like Charlie Bit My Finger and David after Dentist are organic. When the person behind the camera hit record, they didn’t know what they were going to get. While this is a commonality found in many viral videos, it’s not one any brand should bank on. Oh, and here’s Charlie and Harry for your viewing pleasure.

What shouldn’t go unrecognized is the inherent risk in creating viral videos. Many successful viral videos required a large investment in time and money to create something that is not guaranteed to go viral. Few brands are willing to take this risk, but there’s no way to ever guarantee success.

What are some great examples of branded viral video success? What traits did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

Want in on the unique new ways brands can use advanced crowdsourcing to engage followers? Read on. Each of the eight ideas we’ve carefully chosen has the potential to send your engagement numbers through the roof, as long as requests are within reason and rewards are provided.

This much is now true: fans must be given a concrete reason to create content, be it monetary (how about a 20 percent discount?), fame based (be featured on the front page of our site!) or otherwise. Propositions must also make simple sense to prospective participants. As we’ve said before, the content that’s requested must have some clear and present purpose for the brand—don’t call them “entries” or it a “sweepstakes”—for said request to be taken seriously.

So how do you inspire this level of engagement from followers?

1. Turn Them Into “Model” Citizens

BETABRAND
Buzzy San Francisco–based clothing collective Betabrand, headed by quirky Cordarounds creator Chris Lindland, sells uncommon and often ingenious pants, shirts, jackets and more in small batches. New products are announced weekly through product rollouts meant to heighten anticipation and break through the web’s heavy static. Betabrand’s latest flash of brilliance is Model Citizen, a crowdsourcing platform that rewards past customers for modeling BB duds for all to see with generous percentage-off discounts on future orders. According to a method that’s in some ways an evolution of the points-based system that Threadless has used the past few years (which has evolved into a street team of sorts), the resulting photos are often featured front and center on product pages and elsewhere around the site. As reported by The New York Times in a recent profile of the collective, Betabrand customizes the site’s homepage for participants, making the account holder’s photography appear more prominent in an attempt to play up the fame-based perks of the program.

2. Make Their Rides a Reality

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
In what it’s calling an “experimental crowd-derived combat-support vehicle (XC2V) design challenge,” the U.S. Department of Defense has laid down the gauntlet for vehicle designers, auto enthusiasts, engineers and all other comers: Help us design the shape of the future of military-vehicle design, and potentially win yourself up to $10,000 in the process. What’s more impressive is how the winner was chosen: through the sourcing-obsessed Local Motors and The Forge, the car company’s community of automotive designers. Local Motors’ mission: “to lead the next generation of crowd-powered automotive manufacturing, design, and technology in order to enable the creation of game changing vehicles.” The chosen design is on its way to becoming a “fully functioning concept vehicle.”

Another aspect of note is the site that launched the effort: challenge.gov. Itself an arm of ChallengePost.com, this government-grade crowdsourcing platform helps the United States and its various sectors enlist talented citizens for myriad projects on a scale not possible in generations past.

3. Help Them Pick Out the Perfect Pair

WARBY PARKER
Warby Parker, the hottest company in eyewear these days, emphasizes a crowdsourced approach right down to the typically laborious process of choosing the right frames. Here’s how it works: Choose as many as five pairs to try on; send back the pairs you’ve decided against. Still having trouble deciding which look is best for you? Post shots of yourself wearing each style, and let Warby Parker’s Facebook community decide for you. (The brand itself also frequently chimes in, offering kind advice.) The concept is wildly successful, and the company’s Facebook page bustles with activity generated by happy customers who’ve turned into unlikely brand advocates by helping others decide between pairs.

4. Enlist Their Services on Instagram

LEVI’S
When brands use Instagram right, sourcing is a snap. Take Levi’s, which is using the social photo platform Instagram to cast men and women for its next collection. Denim devotees can submit photos for consideration by declaring #iamlevis; it’s all part of Levi’s’ ongoing Millennial-targeted Go Forth campaign. How’s that for incentive? “Applying a tried-and-true PR tactic like crowdsourcing to a ‘new’ network like Instagram adds a different dimension to things,” Econsultancy’s Vikki Chowney has observed, “and allows Levi’s to leverage its increasing popularity in the process.”

WARBY PARKER
Taking the process of sourcing product photos from willing wearers to another level, Warby teamed with the booming photo app’s New York City arm, @instagramnyc (that’s an Instagram handle, kids), this past weekend for #warbywalk, a photo walk around the city that garnered nearly 700 photos by the day’s end. Participants were given specs to use as props in what was perhaps the biggest burst of consumer-taken product shots deliberately produced on a brand’s behalf in recent history (Warby Parker put together the day’s festivities, which also included an afterparty). Not all photos tagged were of the glasses, of course, but in most cases that was precisely the point. The glasses themselves are secondary to the overall lifestyle and attitude they’re associated with. When the frames do appear, they’re seen through the stylish lens of the smartphone-wielding fan–amateur photographer.

5. Let Them Create a Brand-new Brew

BLUE MOON
Denver, Colorado–based Blue Moon Brewing Company is deeply involving brew buffs in creating its next seasonal, limited edition beer, to be released in the fall. It’s not simply a one-week one-off contest; participants absolutely have a say in the proceedings. Thus far, through the brand’s Facebook page, fans have whittled down a field of overall flavors to three. Voting on a choice of label art for each of the finalists—Caramel Apple Spiced Ale, Blackberry Tart Ale and Dark Chocolate Bacon Porter—has just ended. Sampling events for fans are up next, and the final decision will be made in April. If anything, it recalls past efforts from non-alcohol bev brands, like Vitaminwater, that have previously crowdsourced a flavor, although it’s more elegant and structured better engagement-wise.

The months-long effort will culminate in one beer emerging fully formed and appearing on store shelves everywhere. It will be a product that’ll no doubt make anyone who’s been involved in it at any point along the way proud. Think they’ll buy a six-pack and gloat to their friends about their involvement? You’d better believe it.

SAM ADAMS
Boston’s Sam Adams is brewing up its own crowsourcing experiment on Facebook. The Sam Adams Crowd Craft Project gives new meaning to the term home-brewed. Fans are able to chime in on color, clarity, body and flavor and receive a bit of education about each stage of the process—which perfectly matches the brand’s no-frills, all-about-the-beer approach.

6. Let Them Choose the Cover for Once!

ROLLING STONE
In a historic first, Rolling Stone decided to let its readers decide its next cover stars. The magazine collaborated with AOL Music and Atlantic Records for the promotion, sponsored by Garnier Fructis, which let readers choose among 16 “undiscovered” acts. Besides picking the cover spot, the winner received a record deal, a slot at the upcoming Bonnaroo and plenty of free hair gel. When speaking to The New York Times about the landmark promotion, deputy managing editor Nathan Brackett remarked, “We’re making it something where we’re involving our readers at an unprecedented level.”

7. Let Them “Democratize Fashion”

MODCLOTH & VELVET BRIGADE
This past December, hip online fashion shop ModCloth announced that it had acquired DIY fashion design community Velvet Brigade as part of its “mission to democratize fashion.” At the same time, it launched “Make the Cut,” a unique opportunity for aspiring fashion designers to see one of their sketches be brought to life as a ModCloth product. Each winning sketch eventually won $500 in cash and a small cut of the dress’s sales. Truly fashion for the people by the people, this ModCloth engagement gave participants an unparalleled opportunity while providing the company with a new array of great product designs to create and sell. Most important, contests like “Make the Cut” draw the tastemaking designers of tomorrow closer to the brand.

Here are the winning names and dresses.

8. Support Their Brilliant Ideas

GOOD
Good magazine’s brilliant Good Maker platform sources great ideas from readers and helps bring them to life. Organizations are invited to create challenges for their communities in the hope of achieving a meaningful impact. Community members can submit their best ideas, plans and designs for review. The community votes to decide the best idea, and the creator of the challenge rewards the winner by giving them the means to make their idea a reality. We all know how powerful a well-organized crowd can be in forcing change. What could be better than using the power of crowdsourcing for social, and cultural, good?

Have we missed any?

Photo credit: Warby Parker Eyewear

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

Like it or not, your car is becoming more intelligent. With the integration of advanced technologies, your car may know more about you than you know about yourself. Automakers are so committed to equipping their vehicles with the technology users (and brands) want that Ford, GM, and BMW have all opened research labs in Silicon Valley to scout out new technology and keep ahead of trends.

Below, we’re taking a look at some of the coolest technology that’s out there now, how marketing and advertising plays into this brave new world, and we’re making predictions on where all of this is heading.

The Future is Now

My in-laws recently purchased a Ford Edge equipped with Microsoft Sync, and as I needed any excuse to get out of the house and away from the confidence succubus that is my mother-in-law, I took it upon myself to “learn” how to operate Sync. While it does a great many things, I was most impressed by the smartphone integration. Soon enough, the car was reading me my texts, playing my C+C Music Factory channel from Pandora, and giving me a list of how the stocks my father-in-law invests in were performing (I now understand why I wasn’t given a dowry). While I sat in amazement at how great all this new technology was (as well as the car reading this text from my significant other: “My mom is just drunk. I’m sure she’s sorry she called you a putz. Will you come in now?”) I realized a car is no longer a place where people disconnect from the world. People want to stay connected, and car manufacturers need to stay on top of the tech trends in order to market cars to consumers.

Ford isn’t the only one getting into the technology game. GM announced they’re experimenting with technology that will let you update your Facebook status or check Facebook messages through voice commands. Toyota’s Entune system lets you find restaurants and make reservations through Open Table or purchase movie tickets through MovieTickets.com. And if that weren’t enough, you’ll soon be able to “friend” your car on Twitter so it can keep you up-to-date on how it’s doing. (Change the brakes, your fuel economy is down, replace the front tire, you drive like a jackass, etc…) Clearly, having the latest technology is a desire for most car owners, and keeping them safely connected is a priority for car manufacturers. And with all this technology comes great information flowing in and out of the car.

Your Car: The Billboard

Anyone who’s spent time in New York City in the past five years surely understands the increasingly grating experience of sitting through your cab ride accompanied by local television personalities talking about the weather while simultaneously reminding you to watch their shows and buy various products via the in-cab television. Trust me, marketers would want nothing more than to get inside your car and serve you a plate of warm advertising via that nifty touchscreen placed on your dashboard. With all that information you’re sending off into the world via your web searches, e-mail, and social networks, expect advertisers to try and get a hold of some of it when it comes from your car.

• Oil companies would love to know that you’ve just plugged a 500 mile trip into your GPS. They’d love to direct you to their closest filling station to help you get there too.
• Your radio is almost always tuned to the classic rock station which means ticket brokers would pay a premium to inform you about the Crosby, Stills, and Nash concert happening at the local stadium.
• The shock sensors in your 4×4 have been having a field day during your trip to Joshua Tree. Outdoor gear companies would foam at the mouth to put you in the crosshairs of their targeted advertising with this information.
• Did you send an e-mail from your car again? And did it contain the word “meeting” more than three times? You’re obviously doing business from your car, and the nearest hotel would love to know that a savvy business man who is in need of a rest is about to drive past their establishment.

It’s these types of pinpointed information that can attract advertisers. It’s been said before, “How you drive is a reflection of how you live your life,” and your behavior behind the wheel will give those advertisers trying to reach you a great idea of who you are. If advertisers can leverage this information responsibly, then we may see more relevant, informed, and dynamic advertising showing up in automobiles very soon.

Our Predictions

Despite living under high-tension wires and being cursed by a shaman in a New Orleans back alley, I’m not clairvoyant. In fact, based on my latest prescription for contacts, I’m not really normal voyant. But I’ve been in the advertising game long enough and been in several cars in my life which makes me an absolute expert in making predictions about the future of advertising in automobiles. Here are some of the things we can expect to see from car manufacturers and advertisers in the next decade.

• Your GPS will link up with an advertising service that’ll let you know when you’re in close proximity to various stores via voice instructions. (“It’s just about lunch time and Outback Steakhouse is up ahead on the left in .3 miles. They’re having a special on cheese fries.”)
• By allowing these advertisements into your car, manufactures can subsidize free technology upgrades such as placing GPS units in lower-end cars.
• By linking up your car to a Twitter account, it’ll automatically announce when you’ve hit certain milestones. (@AdamsCar: Just hit 50,000 miles on State Street in Santa Barbara, CA, or @JonsEscape: Just completed a long trip from Boston, MA to Baltimore, MD.)
• Based on the make and model of your car, advertisers will be able to serve you ads based on the general demographic for similar car owners. High-end restaurants can promote their businesses to people driving luxury automobiles while cheaper food options can serve ads to economy-class cars, thus creating geo-located targeted advertising.
• A flying car. I realize this isn’t advertising related, but Back to the Future II was over 20 years ago, and the dream of owning a flying car is no more realized than it was in the mid-80s.

What are your predictions for the future of mobile (literally) advertising?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

In early December, Google updated their search algorithm to provide each user with personalized results—the information Google deemed most relevant to the specific user. The news garnered little chatter in the social media realm. According to Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land, less than 50 news articles and blog posts were written about in its initial week (and only 290 to date).

Earlier this month Google made another important change, updating their search algorithm to include personalized search results specifically pulled from Google+ activity, naming the new results “Google Personalized Results.” Once again the news spread through social circles and landed on a few of blogs, but compared to the hoopla surrounding SOPA, Facebook Timeline, and emerging technologies like Pinterest, its effect was more of a ripple than a tidal wave and has many users and news outlets slamming the change.

However, love it or hate it, these changes may be the new “normal” for search, forever.

THE WHAT:

Google’s new feature, Search, plus Your World, has three major components:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts taken from sources which can include both your own and those shared specifically with you. These results are only shown on your own results page.
2. Profiles in Search, shown both in auto-complete and results, which enables you to immediately find people you’re close to or may be interested in following.
3. People and Pages, which help the user find profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, enabling you to follow them with just a few clicks.

PERSONAL RESULTS

Personal results can help a user in a multitude of ways. An example would be if a user were looking to plan a trip. While she could conduct a traditional search around a given vacation spot, a better experience would be to see if her personal network of friends or colleagues have experience travelling to the destination she is searching for. What better way is there to find out about a potential vacation that to view personal experiences from the people you know and trust?

With the advent of Personal Results a user can see what users have said about a given destination on their Google + profiles as well as the associated photo content users may have uploaded on Google +. With these results, the user can find information from her social network in regards to the experiences that they shared at this destination, the photos they have taken, etc., all embedded within Google’s search results.

The goal of these search results is to provide users with a socially driven, personalized search result experience while leveraging their strong search platform. These results get populated based on the user’s Google+ activity, including posts that have been made on Google+’s Stream, links that have been posted by you or your connections, information that has been “+1’d”, etc.

PROFILES IN SEARCH

Based on the fact that there are thousands of searches for people conducted daily, Google launched this feature as a method to instantly connect and interact with people, all within your search results. As the user begins typing in a name, Google will populate a drop down menu of your Google + contacts, eventually showing their profile and giving the user the ability to connect with that user, all from Google’s search results. This development will help connect users in an easier fashion while allowing Google to expand upon their user base of 65 million.

PEOPLE AND PAGES

The People and Pages functionality will show what Google+ users are saying around a given topic. These results are shown on the right hand side of the page, as displayed below. These results encourage users to have a dialog with those displayed results, while finding a community of Google+ users that are centric to that given topic that was queried.

Please note that this change could have a major effect on paid search campaigns, which typically were shown on the right side of a search result page (as well as the top). While top results are unchanged by this development, the results shown on the right side now are pushed to the bottom of the search engine result page, which could result in lower CTRs for advertisers conducting a Google AdWords buy.

THE WHY:

Google is providing this information in an effort to further increase their share within the social landscape by promoting the Google+ network. Google’s bread and butter is search. They are now using this platform as a method to gain traction for their own social network’s results, thus devaluing search results that have been created from other social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook. Needless to say, Twitter is not a fan of this development! Twitter lambasted the changes as “bad” for consumers and Web publishers. Meanwhile, a privacy watchdog group is threatening to file a compliant with the FTC. There will be more info as this develops but one thing is clear, Google is going “all in” with their social network, using the argument that their search results are now more personalized and social providing a richer search experience.

THE REACTION

An op-ed piece on Mashable outlined what many people are echoing about the latest changes: too much too soon. Forbes cited the change as biased (and shows you how to turn it off) Google became the most popular search engine because it was really good at returning relevant results. So what happens when the best (non-Google+) results are pushed halfway down the page? Will people love it or hate it?

What do you think? Is this good for the user or just Google trying to muscle their social platform to the top?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

This post originally appeared in our January issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

In the marketing world, getting in on the ground floor of the latest digital trend can pay huge dividends for users, particularly if they’re brands. But it’s difficult to know exactly which emerging site or app to dive into with both feet. Not every idea pans out, regardless of how much VC funding is acquired. True success depends on widespread adoption of the masses, or at least a dedicated community who simply can’t do without that service.

So for marketers planning for 2012 (maybe a bit late), where should they start?

You’ve got help. The Post-Advertising team has gathered a list of which websites, social communities and mobile applications are poised for a successful 2012 and need to be on the radar of most brands. Not all will fit in the strategy of your brand, but if there is a common bond then you may want to get started ASAP. If you wait until 2013, you’ll be too late.

CURATION

Content curation is nothing new on the web. Juggernauts like Digg and Reddit have been utilizing the masses to curate the best of the web for years now. But in 2011, new technologies emerged that took the power of curation, designed it for the numerous devices we work with (web, smartphone, tablet) and fused it with features from successful social sites, creating semi-niche communities that exploded in popularity.

What it means for brands: People’s affinity for curating content that they care about, whether it’s to have it handy at a moment’s notice or to provide content to a broader audience, has shown how important it is for brands to create their own content that can be shared by users. The more that content is shared, the more likely that content will appear on someone’s Pinterest board or Flipboard feeds. Aside from creating content, brands with active profiles within these communities can engage audiences and establish expertise.

• Pinterest
  Pinterest exploded onto the scene in late 2011, just recently breaking into the top ten most trafficked social websites with hockey stick like membership growth (and the site is still in beta). Users curate content they like— websites, photos, videos, and just about anything that lives on the web—by “pinning” it to their board. (web, app)

• Flipboard
  While one of the older apps on the list, Flipboard’s success (and predicted growth in 2012) shows how important it is for brands to create their own content. Flipboard, a “pocket-sized social magazine” pulls content from your social networks (namely the feeds of those you friend/follow) and delivers it in a magazine format. The more your brand creates sharable content, the more likely it is to show up in social feeds and apps like Flipboard. (app) 
  Related: Zite, Instapaper

SHARING

As the social paradigm continues to evolve and we begin to put more of our lives onto the web for semi-public consumption, it’s no surprise that our physical belongings have begun to pop up for consumption (of sorts) as well. 2011 saw the emergence of sites that allow community members to share (not always for free though) – connecting travelers on a budget to connect with property owners with extra space and people who own things with people who need said things.

What it means for brands: These sites have slowly begun to change the way people travel and purchase, namely the younger generation embracing web 2.0. Brands have an opportunity to benefit from the growing desire of the public to connect the two communities: those who need and those who want, but only for a short period of time. If a brand can find a way to create a platform or community to connect, or help sponsor an preexisting community, they can win in 2012.

• Airbnb
  Just a few years ago there was no convenient way to connect travelers looking for accommodations with owners who wanted to rent their space on a short-term basis. Airbnb created “a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique spaces around the world” to help solve this problem. While privacy concerns linger, especially after a horrific debacle that left a homeowner with a ravaged and nearly destroyed home, Airbnb is still growing. (web, mobile)
  Related: Couch Surfing

• Neigh*borrow
  Need a few power tools to finish that bathroom project you’ve been milking for two months now but don’t want to drop a few hundred dollars? You might be in luck. Neigh*borrow is an online marketplace specializing in “things people need to use but don’t need to own.” The site connects people who are geographically or socially close to one another and provides the tools to reduce the “friction” of sharing. Think of it as eBAY for things you don’t keep, but use when you need and return. (web)
  Related: Zaarly

MUSIC

We’ve written extensively about branding for Spotify, Pandora and more. These emerging technologies have dragged the music industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and brands should take notice. Their deep integration into social channels, particularly those that are frictionless, means free, targeted impressions for artists.

What it means for brands: Music fans are hungry for free and low cost streaming music services, but just buying interruptive and annoying ads within those services aren’t enough (the paid Pandora subscription is worth it to avoid commercials). Finding ways to integrate music into branded content (think: curated playlists) can help color a brand’s personality like never before.

• Spotify
  Spotify is your music library on steroids. As long as you have an internet connection, Spotify connects you to millions of tracks on demand, with no need to download and easy ways to create playlists, share your content, and discover new artists. The free version supports itself on the back of banner ads and ad spots between songs, but the paid version will rid your day of those nuisances. (windows/mac, app)
  Related: MOG

• Pandora
  While Pandora doesn’t allow the user to choose songs on demand, it does help users find new music and listen to the music they already love by utilizing an algorithm that groups similar artists and takes into consideration the songs you thumb up or down. The ads are less intrusive but still show up every so often, however pay a few dollars a month and you have an endless playlist. (web, app)
  Related: Grooveshark

FOOD/DRINK/ENTERTAINMENT

Web 2.0 has changed the landscape of dining and entertainment. Looking for something to do or somewhere to eat? There are numerous apps and sites that will help you find or discover just what you’re looking for.

What it means for brands: Focusing on hyper-niche targeted technologies can lead interested users discovering a new, favorite brand. Brands in this category that aren’t afraid to think into the future can come up with technologies that take the guessing game out of planning a night, making life easier for audiences and even giving them reasons why they should be engaging with your brand.

• SocialGrapes
  We can check into places, movies, TV shows, and now wines. SocialGrapes allows users to check into wines, share toasts with friends, and (most importantly for wine/spirits brands) discover wines they’ll love. Are you a wine brand? Get your fans using this app and checking into your wines ASAP, though how great would it have been if your brand were the ones to have created it? (iPhone)
  Related: GetGlue

• Curbed
  Curbed is a network of sites providing local information on dining & nightlife, shopping & fashion, and design & real estate in cities like Boston, NY, D.C., Los Angeles and more. The editors of Curbed “relentlessly report on sales and rental prices, new developments, neighborhood trends, and celebrity deals.” Brands with local ties will want to take note of sites and apps like these, particularly the geosocial apps where peer reviews and opinions truly influence where people choose to go. (web, iPhone)
  Related: Gothamist, Eater

What technologies do you see making a splash in 2012?

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

With additional reporting by Adam Uhrynowski.

We’re all familiar with mudslinging in political commercials, debates and speeches. In the recent Iowa caucuses, negative advertising was more apparent than ever. But why do America’s leaders spend so much time pointing out the competition’s flaws and defending their political (and personal) histories rather than promoting themselves? Does it even work? What if brands reverted to this tactic? We’ll answer these questions and more after the jump.

In a recent debate, war raged between Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich as the Mitt Romney, the “inevitable nominee,” took to Twitter to trash talk Obama. Later, all guns were pointed at Romney in New Hampshire.

The GOP is in full-on attack mode. However, the majority of voters claim to dislike mudslinging politicians. In fact, there can even be a “boomerang effect,” where the politician touches too many personal subjects and the efforts reflect negatively on him.

Attack ads are bad. Bad in politics, bad for brands.

With all this negativity flying back and forth from candidate to candidate (again, many of whom are on the same side), it reminds us how brands get caught up in the same type of positioning. Like the horrors of World War II and Vietnam, the Cola Wars left us all scarred in the ’80s. We distinctly remember Bronson “Don’t Call Me Balki” Pinchot setting up shop in a mall kiosk and telling people why they shouldn’t drink Coke. But the message was lost. All we took away from those commercials was that Pepsi hated Coke and it didn’t have enough faith in its own product to let the can stand on its own.

Granted, this happens all the time with brands. McDonald’s took on Burger King in a subtle and cute way in this German advertisement for the fast food chain. Sure, it was peppered with smiling children and upbeat music, but the message was still the same: McDonald’s is so much better than the competition that bullies won’t attack a lonesome child whose mother is too busy to make him a respectable lunch when they think he’s eating Burger King. You’ll find the potshots taken across the board. Car companies have struck blows across the bow on thousands of occasions such as this commercial from BMW attacking Audi. And while many times you’ll find that the brands are able to get their messaging across, it’s often at the expense of their competition. The best way to advertise is to advance your brand’s story by demonstrating why your product is the best on the market, not at taking cheap shots at companies you’re up against. The best advertising doesn’t involve kicking your competitors but, instead, defining who and what your brand is and why consumers learn more about your services. In other words, let your products speak for themselves. The same could be said for politics. Why risk alienating those who don’t like your attack ads, when you could gain political supporters by taking the higher road and showcasing why you deserve to be elected?

Negative advertising is a sort of “underdog game,” says Professor Julie Hennessy in Advertising Age—the stakes are too high for bigger brands that risk drawing attention to lesser competitors that consumers might be unfamiliar with.

It’s a little bit different in politics, as most candidates already have their names in the news. But, especially when it comes to personal and family issues, politicians had better zip their lips: Voters hate low blows (like calling out Gingrich’s three marriages). However, pointing to a candidate’s flawed voting record—meaning sticking to the important facts—can have the reverse effect.

The way we see it, it’s like your mama always said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But that old adage hasn’t really sunk into the world of politics. Why tell a negative story?

CNN says so much money and time is spent on attack ads because they work. The article claims that negative information is more memorable than positive. So, basically, when the country gets in the voting booths they’re being asked choose the lesser of two evils. Whom they hate the least. That’s pretty messed up.

Brands and politicians alike should remember that they’re telling their own (positive) stories, not the stories of others. That way consumers know what you offer—not what your competition lacks.

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HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE POST-ADVERTISING SUMMIT YET?

We’ll be peering into the future of all things content marketing, advertising, journalism and social media at our Post-Advertising Summit, March 29th in New York City. We’ll stop talking and start DOING with workshops that put pen to paper and truly create a piece of valuable content. Speakers including Simon Dumenco (AdAge), Shira Lazar (What’s Trending), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute) and more. In order to get the best price, reserve your seat at the Summit table today!

Facebook’s recent integration with various websites and applications is the latest and largest move toward a more social, more streamlined online experience. With this new method of sharing, users can automatically connect their Facebook profiles with apps to instantly stream their online activity. “Frictionless sharing” was recently named one of the top social trends of 2011 by ReadWriteWeb, a clear endorsement of the trend of lifestreaming, in which users collect all parts of their online existence and experience into a unified webpage.

If we are to believe the forecasting of Mark Zuckerberg, the amount of information we share on the Internet will double every year. This may seem like an intimidating figure, especially among users concerned about some old-timey concept called “privacy,” but although online sharing will undoubtedly become more automatic, it will still be an individual, elective choice. All participating apps allow you to opt out of frictionless sharing, thereby protecting your potentially humiliating online activity from your social network.

Let’s not overlook the fact that there are also distinct benefits of this phenomenon. For consumers, it means a more streamlined method of sharing and a brand new way to make suggestions to friends and take advice from peers. For apps, it’s a form of free advertising and a way to start a social discussion surrounding their original content. By automating interaction, the apps appear more useful and involving than the human user normally has time to initiate.

So where does this leave brands?

Because of the diversity of applications using frictionless sharing, any forward-thinking and social brand can latch onto the trend. There are plenty of video and music apps seamlessly connected with Facebook, so creating a brand presence on any of these sites will help crack into the coveted millennial audience. Creating playlists on Spotify, for example, can be an engaging new way for brands to reach a lot of users without a huge advertising spend.

A committed social brand could also use Facebook’s Open Graph Beta to activate frictionless sharing technology in its own app, as it is now available to all Facebook developers. A brand’s blog could enable this feature to become a more prevalent fixture on Facebook. “Katie Edmondson read ‘Frictionless Sharing’ on Post-Advertising” is an automatic and free advertisement that will create brand awareness and add a level of personal connection in the form of a simple referral.

Is Frictionless Sharing an Accurate Indication of Interest?

With manual sharing and content aggregation, users must actively choose which morsels they wish to share from the wide buffet of the web. This means that each morsel is especially delicious, in the eyes of the user. With automatic sharing, users inevitably end up broadcasting content that they did not particularly like, but just happened to watch, read or hear (or, worse, mistakenly click on and then bounce). It stands to reason that it will become much more difficult for all of us to sift through the barrage of recommendations to find the most succulent bites, inevitably leading to oversaturation of recommendations.

There is no mechanized filter in this system—it is an all-or-nothing social experience as determined by the user. This may decrease the quality of content shared, but it will certainly increase the quantity. While consumers may feel inundated by the amount of shared content, they will eventually create their own personal filters about what they choose to engage with.

For a brand trying to enter into this new frontier, great content will still win as users quickly learn to take in and mentally categorize the flood of new recommendations. Something unique and interesting will grab the attention of a jaded Facebook user far more than an endless stream of mediocre material.

What do you think: How else can brands best take advantage of frictionless sharing? Share your own thoughts below.

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Another monumental change has occurred just in the past 20 months or so. With the introduction of the iPad and other tablet devices that followed shortly thereafter, readers are able to dive deeper into content than ever before. So it’s no surprise that when Razorfish chairman Clark Kokich wanted to write a book, he decided that the only appropriate way to do so was to bypass traditional publishers and create it as an interactive application. See the demo below.

We at Post-Advertising wholeheartedly believe that the marketing landscape has changed, bringing forth a new era in which marketers must stop simply saying and start actually doing: creating useful and entertaining content that audiences enjoy so much, they’re compelled to share it. Brands can’t simply interrupt and demand attention. This is nothing new, but it is important to think about when you look at this book, er, app.

So while Clark’s book, aptly titled Do or Die, explains how some enlightened companies are putting doing above saying in weird and wonderful ways, it’s the book itself, or rather the fact that it’s not a book at all, that we find so post-advertising. To get it published, Clark wrestled with the antiquated methods of traditional publishers, including a six-week tug-of-war over what the title should be (after Clark himself sent McGraw-Hill 39 titles he deemed acceptable, none of which were approved), until he realized that he was making the same mistakes brands do. He was taking traditional routes to tell his story instead of exploiting the technologies that have recently emerged.

Shortly after the tug-of-war, Clark realized his vision:

“A book optimized for the iPad and other tablets — one that would include videos of interviews with CEOs and CMOs [including former Kodak CMO Jeff Hayzlett, Head of PepsiCo Digital Shiv Singh, GroupM CEO Rob Norman and Story Worldwide CEO Kirk Cheyfitz], plus ways to view case histories by allowing readers to access live websites and Twitter feeds embedded into the stories, and then give readers a way to comment and share ideas with each other. In short, it would be the ultimate expression of practicing what we preach.”

At $9.99, the app is priced comparable to other books in its category yet boasts far more content and interactivity than any standard print version could dream of offering (no, your QR codes don’t cut it). Instead of reading brief excerpts of case studies, readers can click through to in-depth case studies that include high-resolution photography and embedded videos. If you’re not much for reading, included in the app is an audio version as well.

Since we believe that this is the future of publishing, the question is not “Why aren’t more authors doing this?” but “Whose next book does it make sense to publish as an in-depth app?” Seth Godin’s? Gary Vaynerchuk’s? Let us know in the comments.

Join us as we take a look back at mobile’s massive growth this year as a way to forecast 2012: the year in which mobile takes over and rules the world.

This past year, brands and mobile apps tapped into the nation’s consciousness as never before, perfectly fulfilling people’s desire to share, connect and consume. Will mobile rule the world in 2012? If these highly influential apps have anything to say about it, the answer’s a resounding YES.

1. Instagram

Instagram was a shining star in the sharing department. Created little more than a year ago, this photo-sharing application now boasts more than 13 million registered users and more than 200,000,000 photos, the latter being fundamentally social. This growth is explosive, especially considering that the app is available only to iPhone users. In fact, Instagram is now the biggest mobile-only platform.

Brands are coming on board by the dozen; Starbucks boasts 92,000 followers, while fashion brand Bergdorf’s has shared more than 900 photo uploads with followers. Instagram’s unique idea and clean execution set the standard for mobile technology: a simple, easy-to-use interface, exceptional capabilities and great connectivity with existing networks. Now that the developer has announced that a new, Android version of Instagram isn’t too far off, the potential of the social-photo-sharing outlet, and other one-off sharing apps like it, as a marketing tool can be ignored no longer.

2. NBC and Foursquare

While Instagram is a hit with the tech conscious, mobile is moving into the spotlight for mainstream consumers. Case in point: NBC’s recent announcement that it will use the location-based social site Foursquare to map the 2012 campaign. This marriage of national news media and location-aware software to produce a sort of new-age social reporting, embraces what we’ve lately come to know: that consumers, armed with simple, always-on mobile software, are the best reporters out there. (image)

3. Google Wallet; Converse

On the mobile-to-physical-purchasing front, tech companies and multinational brands alike are searching for ways to make the experience smooth, simple and uninhibited. Google Wallet and its use of Cloud technology are but one of this year’s attempts to make the phone-as-wallet concept feel more natural. Count also the continued proliferation and acceptance of QR codes in 2011 brand campaigns.

Some brands are taking a more tongue-in-cheek approach when it comes to mobile as a means of bridging the physical and digital worlds. The Sampler iPhone app by Converse lets you “try on” a new pair of Chucks digitally, just by supplying a quick shot of your legs and current kicks needs.

Endless Possibilities

A new breed of mobile-focused startups is making Apple’s iconic tagline “There’s an app for that” ring truer than ever before. As silly as it may sound, there will soon be a special something on your mobile device for anything and everything you can dream up.

More and more we’re coming to view our mobile devices as our social lifelines, not unlike how we saw newspapers, radio and television in the past. It’s no stretch to say that the mobile device is coming into its own, finding its role as the conduit for consumer journalism and content generation, and as the key to bridging the gap between online and in-person worlds.

Our prediction:

The year 2012 will be the tipping point for mobile—a watershed year for the medium as we know it and for its expanding capabilities. Widespread acceptance will be realized and critical mass reached for brands, which will begin using mobile as the core component of new campaigns.

What was your favorite mobile moment of 2011? What does 2012 have in store for mobile technology?

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The art of tightrope walking is one of those feats whose objective is simple but accomplishing it is not: The walker must travel from one end of the tightrope to the other without falling off. All of us at some point in our lives have tried a version of this, usually on the curb of a sidewalk, and have quickly realized that it’s not as easy as it looks. It takes balance and concentration to keep from falling. Make it a high wire and the difficulty increases exponentially: Failure now has much more dire consequences.

Every brand that has created a social media persona walks a tightrope every day: the tightrope of privacy and transparency. Lean too far to the side of privacy and you’re seen as a cold, faceless company that doesn’t care about connecting with your audience. Lean too far to the side of transparency and you risk spilling undisclosed information, giving incorrect or improper advice, or even breaking the law.

In the past, brands didn’t have much opportunity to walk this tightrope. Because there was no Internet access, employees were seen but not often heard. Customers could try if they wished to telephone a human being to ask for help but usually fell victim to phone trees or endless hold music. Remember the adage “A happy customer tells one friend; an angry one tells seven”? Only seven? A brand should be so lucky!

Stepping Off the Platform

In the post-advertising age, the walls maintaining privacy have come tumbling down, and not just for brands. People who would ordinarily be mere acquaintances now have their fingers on the pulse of our lives. They see our daily updates, the places we go, the pictures of our children, our employers’ names and our interests. They read our thoughts, which spill into blogs and Twitter updates. One ne’er-do-well among those 500 “friends” and 1,000 “followers” could wreak havoc with us if they so desired.

As the social paradigm shifts and consumers allow practically carte blanche access to their personal lives, brands are expected to follow suit. Since brands have extended their reach by creating digital personas across social channels, customers perceive those channels as granting 24/7 access to a human being who is ready and willing to listen to their concerns. But for some brands it’s not as easy as planting a community manager in front of a laptop and responding to Twitter mentions and Facebook comments. Brands, mainly those in the pharmaceutical and alcohol industries, are bound by legal regulations concerning public communications. So what’s a brand to do?

Brands on the Line

In most cases, the answer is “Proceed with caution.” Putting your brand reputation (and legal standing) in the hands of a few employees can be a worthwhile yet dangerous undertaking. Most brands create a hierarchical process for approving content on social-media sites like Facebook. Consumers may like to believe that cool video about winemaking was shared spontaneously with 200,000 fans, but in reality, wall posts tend to be approved well in advance of the actual posting. This process may take weeks, a delay that sometimes keeps the content on a page from being timely.

User-generated comments on Facebook pages can be a trickier situation. When you allow your fans access to your wall, they are free to post whatever they want. Of course, they are subject to Facebook-specific guidelines, but alcohol and pharma are notably stricter when it comes to their rules.

Let’s look at an example. Toasted Head (Story client) is a wine brand (and part of the larger Constellation Wine family). Toasted Head creates an active Facebook community and encourages discussion and interaction among fans. There are times, however, when the brand must delete even a small-seeming comment. Any reference, however subtle, to overconsumption, underage drinking or inappropriate sexuality gets the ax. Even any mention of a hangover is a no-no. There is a disclaimer in the information section of the page, but there is always the fear that someone will be outraged by his or her post being deleted. Or, worse, that someone will go on a Facebook commenting rampage and the brand won’t be able to delete it in time.

But these regulations are nothing when compared to the FDA-monitored pharmaceutical industry, in which everything needs approval. And we mean everything. Change a comma placement without approval and you may be in legal trouble. Change a whole sentence and forget about it. Interacting with people via Facebook, where fingers type so rapidly without thinking of consequences, is very difficult for a pharma brand. This industry is one of the last to enter the social-media sphere; slowly it is sticking a toe onto the dangerous tightrope. Social-media applications like PharmaWall improve the situation by allowing administrators to approve, deny or suggest changes for incoming comments. Whether this approval process will disrupt the natural and immediate flow of Facebook has yet to be seen, but it is certainly a positive step for brands to comply with legal restrictions while still directly interacting with the public.

My metaphor for dealing with privacy and transparency has a flaw, however. For a flesh-and-blood tightrope walker, there’s a platform at the other end: a clear destination. The dawn of the post-advertising age has shone a light on new horizons, but social media is an everlasting effort. As we continue to reach audiences through social media, we’ll continue to teeter on the tightrope between privacy and transparency.

How are your brands dealing with privacy and transparency in the digital age?

Fraud in the world of digital marketing isn’t something new, of course. We’ve written about Amazon rewarding reviewers with freebies calling into question how reliable consumer feedback is. There are also message boards dedicated to the art of black hat SEO where users can chat about buying YouTube views, blog cloning, article spinning, keyword stuffing, Google +1 trading and more techniques that will make your skin crawl (I hope).

The Fate of a Black Hat Social Media Marketer

Any savvy marketer would recognize this practice as, well, just silly. Just because you have fans doesn’t mean they’re actually actively engaged or interested. And it certainly doesn’t guarantee it will drive purchase. Seth Godin has written extensively about the double-edged sword of chasing followers. The value of your audience is entirely reliant on their level of engagement, so passive Facebook fans just boost your ego, not your brand’s worth.

But more importantly, those engaging in black-hat social media are committing downright fraud. They are lying if they tell the world that they have a certain number of fans, when those fans aren’t mildly engaged and many may not even be human. And they will be caught. With the rise of apps like Klout and PeerIndex, the public can measure the effect a brand has on its audience, but even those technologies can be gamed.

Once found out, how do you think the public will view these brands? They’ll certainly lose credibility from the public’s perspective.

Even if they don’t get caught, per say, they’ll quickly find that all fans aren’t created equal and simply clicking “like” doesn’t promise social mentions, purchases, or evangelism, especially if that user doesn’t have a pulse!

The Moral High Ground

Not all brands are involved in this shady underworld of black-hat social media. A few have been extremely transparent throughout the process and personally engaged with consumers, listening and responding accordingly. For example, Burberry launched a Facebook page last year that included Burberry Acoustic, a feature dedicated to entertain users with musical performances from up-and-coming artists. As of November 2010, the brand had more than two million fans. Today, by keeping the content relevant and up to day, these numbers are quickly approaching 100,000,000.

For further reading, check out our free eBook about effective Facebook audience generation techniques.

What do you think of black hat social media techniques? Do you think any major brands are taking part?

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In: consumers taking control.

From Coke’s recent cancelation of its white Christmas cans to Gap reverting back to its signature logo, 2011 seemed to be the year of empowered consumers. But we’ve been writing about this phenomenon for some time now. The proof is out there that we have major influence over what big corporations can and cannot do (just study the branding needs of Occupy Wall Street for inspiration). So what could 2012 have in store for us?

Let’s look back at a few of the year’s biggest redos.

Dominos Pizza

For years, Domino’s had tried to get by with subpar pizza simply because they were fast, cheap, and often the most convenient. But after a video on YouTube chronicled two employees doing dastardly deeds to customers’ food, Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle issued a public apology and steered the company in a 180-degree turn. The company took responsibility for its lack of quality and began truly listening to their customers, changing recipes and even seeking out their harshest critics in an attempt to give their pizza a second chance. You’d have to figure being featured on a national commercial eating much-improved pizza would turn them into evangelists.

Ford Motors

Ford relied on its upgraded customer-feedback program to really listen to consumers. And, when they complained about the readability and messy menus of their MyFord Touch systems, they abandoned old technology and created a better version with bigger type and icons and more user-friendly navigation. Maps, voice-recognition and ebook support were all available with this update. What did Ford learn? That listening to consumers increases loyalty and gives you insight on what they might want in the future, so you can produce better products going forward. As a bonus, satisfying your customers based solely on their feedback generates positive buzz and more word-of-mouth recommendations—thus increasing your customer pool.

L.L. Bean

L.L. Bean has always made a point of adjusting based on consumer feedback. For 99 years now, the outdoor retail company has paid attention and acted appropriately. In 1912, the now-famous brand released its first item: a pair of hunting boots, which were sold to 100 people. When 90 customers returned complaining of leaks, the company graciously refunded them and borrowed more money to improve its product. The company, in fact, requests consumer feedback: Senior vice president and CMO Steve Fuller says that consumers alone are able to determine how satisfactory its wares are.

But that’s all in the past. What could brands do in the future to entice consumers and brand loyalty? Let’s get creative and come up with a few promotions to win customers back.

• Bank of America executives are seen shackled outside their offices to apologize and win back your business.
• Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonald’s, must eat his own fast food exclusively for a month.
• Exxon Mobil tyrants pledge to go a year without using their cars.
• Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke must spend Christmas living off a Wal-Mart storeroom salary.
• Maybe even Victoria’s Secret rewards men with a sexy lingerie calendar when they purchase $50 or more (just don’t tell their wives).

And those are just a few ideas. The point is that we now have the power to dictate corporate action.

Which brands are on your “naughty” list this year—and what could they do to make nice again?

You didn’t know there was a war going on in Europe? That’s because it took place in 1939. It’s the beginning of the Second World War, and it’s being retold on this date and at this time by the Twitter account @RealTimeWWII. After tweeting for only three months, @RealTimeWWII, which according to Mashable is maintained by Oxford graduate Alwyn Collinson, has already exceeded 150,000 followers. Why can’t brands be this inventive?

WHERE ARE THE BRANDS?

While unique and intriguing, this historical exhibition had our post-advertising team wondering, “Isn’t this a major missed branding opportunity?” Where’s LIFE, whose logo is often seen on the images posted to the account? Where’s the History Channel? Can you imagine the benefit if a university’s history department had developed this idea as a course exercise?

Seemingly as fast as new digital tools emerge, impassioned fans have found new and unique ways to use them. @RealTimeWWII is just one example of the versatility of Twitter, which in its short history has chronicled the comic ramblings of one man’s father (which spawned a short-lived sitcom), hosted group chats, brought fictional TV characters to life (both branded and fan-based), fueled computer sales and provided a platform for customer support but, most important, has given brands a new way to creatively connect with its audience.

PERCEIVED TWITTER GATEKEEPERS

So why aren’t more brands actively searching for more ways on Twitter to provide valuable and engaging content, like @RealTimeWWII? The necessity for a sustained, persistent effort coupled with the blind faith that people will eventually catch on can be a major barrier to entry for brands that have little patience for devoting resources to an effort with no immediate or guaranteed return.

Success on Twitter is often calculated by the most tangible of measurements: number of followers. Any seasoned marketer knows, however, that given the numerous black-hat get-rich-quick methods of gaining followers and the necessity for relevance, follower count is not a metric you can ultimately measure success by. It’s this obsession with numbers that brands must get past to take a whack at creating the good stuff, the content that doesn’t scream “Marketing!” and that instead entertains or informs or, as in the case of @RealTimeWWII, both.

STEAL THESE IDEAS

The branded Twitter landscape isn’t barren, though. There have been a few efforts (like the Weather Channel, below) that can be considered quite post-advertising, and also a few that we’ve come up with on our own. Take a look, and let us know your ideas in the comments:

• The Weather Channel taking over accounts named after hurricanes, like @Irene, where they give up-to-the-minute information about the storm from its point of view.

 

• Paramount Pictures or Disney Pixar creating characters’ personas on Twitter before the specific movie is released, in a prequel of sorts, as if the character had a Twitter account before the movie action took place.

 

• Ford creating a unique Twitter account for the development and eventual unveiling of its latest model, including live updates from the manufacturing facility, gradual insight into features and road testing (with media).

 

• Sports Illustrated creating an account for a fictional Chicago White Sox batboy in which he chronicled the famed 1919 “Black Sox” season in real time.

Even if a brand doesn’t come up with an idea but finds an effort still in its early stages that it can align itself with and that can become a true resource, the brand can own the effort and benefit from the momentum. The History Channel could still help sponsor the @RealTimeWWII effort, enabling it to be developed in more languages (currently offered in Spanish @TiempoReal_IIGM and Russian @war_only) or even from different perspectives (British, German, American, etc.). Regardless, any brand that wants to get involved will have to do more than just logo slapping if it wants to keep the existing audience and momentum.

Whether your brand is filling the wastebasket with half-baked ideas or looking for the right idea to help cultivate, Twitter is fertile ground for brands extending their reach and helping grow audiences. Success won’t be immediate, no matter what your goal, but if you believe in the idea and dedicate the right amount of sustained resources, content marketing on Twitter can pay huge dividends.

What opportunities are being embraced or missed by brands on Twitter? Do you have any more to add to our list?

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This post originally appeared in our October issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement starting to fade with the public still confused as to exactly what their story exactly was, many lessons can be learned from their efforts to change the world and why their movement never really gained traction. Could it have been because they were letting others define who they were and what their message was?

Story Worldwide Chief Editorial Officer (and fellow Post-Advertising contributor) Kirk Cheyfitz recently joined Small Business Expert Jim Blasingame on his Small Business Radio podcast and weighed in on the challenges facing brands trying to unearth their core brand story and what they need to do to tell a cohesive brand story that sticks.

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How did one charity turn perhaps the definitive symbol of machismo into a highly effective charity badge? What part have brands played in the process, and what can those still watching from the sidelines learn from well-aligned brands? Cause marketing has entered the 21^st century, and you better believe it’s sporting a ‘stache.

In case you’re unaware (we all make mistakes), November is now the month of the moustache—meaning it’s high time for donations towards and discussions about men’s health (the stated focus being on prostate cancer). We previously covered Movember two years back, as it began gathering steam on North American shores. Participating males (“’Mo Bros”) shave clean on November 1^st and document their month-long journey with photo updates, all the while calling for donations.

Some—myself included—have surrendered their dignity along the way. It’s not the size of the ‘Mo ‘stache, but the thought that counts, right? (I’m sure the donations even my sad ‘stache has netted so far help, too.) One helpful bit of guidance found on Movember promotional materials helps keep weary ‘Mo Bros going (and, emphasizes the importance of good editorial):

“Trying to grow a moustache can be an embarrassing thing, but so can talking about prostate cancer; we are all in this together, book your annual check up today!”

The primary experience lives on Movember.com, which offers testosterone-driven do-gooders the ability to create their own profile, quickly draft up donation messages and team up with their fellow facial hair-fueled philanthropists. Going beyond the dot com, this year’s incarnation brings with it a more fully-featured iPhone app and focused regional Facebook communities for USA, Canada, UK, Denmark and Australia.

THE KEY TO MOVEMBER’S CONTINUED SUCCESS

How and why has this charity succeeded and stood out among countless others? The simple answer has much to do with their seriously smart strategy: by taking ownership of a definitive, highly visible bodily feature for a month—turning it iconic and instantly identifiable in a way not unlike the color pink and its association with the Susan G. Komen foundation and breast cancer. The fact that Movember constitutes a month-long story makes it all the more talk-able; the visual and creative aspects lend themselves perfectly to social media, where reminders live in profile photos and status updates. Instead of several, scattered pleas for donations, Movember efforts come off as a chorus of regularly occurring updates that, besides having purpose, are also fun.

According to Sparksheet, the continued, snowballing success can partly be attributed to the concentrated effort to form a cohesive brand and the establishment of a centralized organization dubbed the Movember Foundation. But how about brands and cause-based marketing?

Described as “grassroots” and “rebellious” by co-founder Adam Garone, the yearly event—a decidedly targeted effort for men, by men, to reach other men—absolutely lends itself to involvement from similarly aligned brands that can elegantly, ethically insert themselves and pitch in. The potential is huge; even as it stands, brands are another major reason for the program’s overall success.

BRANDS GOING ‘MO FOR THE MONTH

This past year, hipsters and hockey players alike have rallied behind the cause. Stand-up companies like The Art of Shaving and Toms have become close partners; name brands like Mr. Clean and sporting teams like the Florida Panthers are doing great work as well.

The brands listed below have all gotten great mileage out of their efforts, in part due to their relevance with the charity’s demo, the quality of content, offers or products presented in honor of ‘mo month.

One particularly ‘mo-rrific brand collaboration this year has been with Break.com, the popular humor site geared towards—surprise—younger males. Thus far, they’ve kicked off a Movember photo contest on their Facebook Page, a slew of original content on their brand site, and even a sub-sponsorship by Honda and their—again, surprise, male-oriented—Ridgeline truck, which adorn Break.com’s Mo of the Day within their Movember Central hub. Furthermore, Break’s bloggers are maintaining a mo blog, daily tips are being uploaded, and real-time “mo chatter” is being displayed.

This is a primary example of a brand clearly with a lot to gain from this movement who’ve not just cheaply endorsed the efforts and reaped the benefits, but worked hand-in-hand to visibly advance the cause. Here’s a great history of Movember produced by Made Man (part of Break sprawling digital media network), which serves as a great piece of original content and a storytelling tool.

In the same realm, comedy content heavyweights CollegeHumor must be commended for an extremely potent infographic on all things moustache, including a brief history on the charity itself and resonant points about men’s health. Furthermore, general guy stuff depository uncrate has teamed with men’s clothing brand Bonobos to offer a $500 Bonobos gift card to the uncrate Movember team member who raises the most, again upping the stakes and inspiring more donation work. A handful of $100 Bonobos gift cards are also being given away.

By all means a brand in and of themselves, the NHL has shown strong—albeit unofficial—support for Movember. Dozens of players have elected to grow for the cause, gaining the nonprofit considerable speculative buzz among curious sports fans. Missed opportunity: an official endorsement by the NHL, which would have made them the first major sports league to get on board. Still, even grassroots work by individual players has made for great publicity—a testament to the movement’s ingenious use of a highly visible badge of sorts. In case you were curious, Yahoo’s got a list of the top 10 greatest NHL mo’s this November.

The Art of Shaving, a NYC-based retailer of high end shaving tools and skin care accessories—perhaps the perfect Movember sponsor—has also been an active partner. Not only are they offering discounted hot towel shaves until November 30^th, but they began the month with a $10,000 donation and a pledge to match all donations made by those who join their team (up to $25,000). A well-monitored Facebook Page Wall encourages participants to show off their creations and offers helpful information on Movember USA to all who ask.

Having been a sponsor for years, shoe brand TOMS—which have been committed to charity for some time through their One for One initiative—have once again created limited edition Movember shoes. All proceeds from the sale of the two designs go to the Movember Foundation.

And let’s not forget the iconic Mr. Clean, who has taken up the cause on Facebook, where he’s been growing his own glorious ‘mo all month long [https://www.facebook.com/mrclean?ref=ts]. The brand even drafted up great lightly-branded creative like this. Just like ‘Mo Bros everywhere, the baldheaded king of clean has had his profile photo updated each week to showcase his progress. A playful Moustache O’ Meter shows how far along he is. Fans have weighed in each step of the way—although descriptive updates have tapered off and Movember is not commonly referenced in posts and responses like on The Art of Shaving’s Page.

Still the gesture by such a well known, long-running brand is worth noting. Elegant copy like this description on Mr. Clean’s “’Mo Space” page helps emphasize and give appropriate weight:

“I’ve gone over 50 years without facial hair of any kind. Even the 70′s couldn’t make me grow a moustache. But for an important cause like this, I’m gonna grow the greatest mo’ ever illustrated.”

Someecards represent a number of other web-based brands doing what they can do selflessly raise awareness. In Someecards’ case, it means a small collection of funny Movember-themed e-cards. These entities may have far less to gain than, say, a directly related brand like The Art of Shaving, but they choose to back the effort anyhow.

One example of Someecards' series in support of Movember.

Smaller brands, such as Wheelmen & Co., creators of vintage bicycle-inspired clothing and bags, have found small yet significant ways to support the cause. All of the proceeds from stickers featuring Wheelmen & Co.’s mustachioed logo in the month of November go to the American Cancer Society.

‘MO BRANDS MISSING IN ACTION

A Mo Bro’s average age: 31.

Beyond the current sponsors (official or otherwise), we at Post Advertising can think of a boatload of other brands who fit just as well and have just as much to gain from being associated with Movember:

-Axe Body Spray
-Old Spice (especially the Old Spice Guy)
-Gillette (although they do own The Art of Shaving)
-Braun
-Maxim Magazine
-Various whisky/scotch brands
-Dos Equis
-Brawny
-ESPN
-Just for Men
-Vice Magazine
-TV shows (ex: How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson grows a ‘mo as part of a storyline)

One ‘Mo Bro took it upon himself to create his own Old Spice Movember commercial. Probably a good sign that Old Spice should line up a sponsorship for next year, no?

The great part about yearly charities like Movember? Their set-in-stone dates make it easy for brands to plan sponsorships and promotions far in advance. Meaning no excuses for not playing ball!

Let it be seen as in example not only in regards to Movember, but charities elsewhere, that brand-appropriate cause marketing can not only establish a company as progressive and leading-edge, but if ignored, can make your brand look negligent or worse yet, selfish and uncaring.

PA READERS! Who else do you think belongs in our running list of should-be ‘Mo Brands? How does this get your mind racing in regards to other brand categories and their corresponding target demos and related charities?

This post originally appeared in our November issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

Free music streaming services are here to stay. So when will brands really come out and play? Saviors like Spotify and MOG, plus the now-seasoned vets Pandora and Last.fm—which have dragged the music industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century—are now the best bets at monetizing and spreading music legally into the future. And now, via social platforms like Facebook and its Open Graph, they’re encouraging more sharing than ever before.

Top that off with the hundreds of ingenious apps and web sites taking shape through music’s newfound online freedom and you’ve got one hell of an opportunity—one that most brands have squandered. Turns out, there’s much brands can do, as both advertiser and Page admin, to utilize these valuable new tools.

Today’s range of music tools and platforms—which help listeners discover, curate, mash up,  and make social all things music—is simply staggering. This graphic from Fast Company (below) illustrates just a small crop of the 200+ apps that utilize the Echo Nest, primarily a searchable database for app developers of every possible data point imaginable of 30 million songs called the Musical Brain. Included in this effort is how the brand has teamed up with EMI to offer a full range of songs and artists for app developers to create with.

In addition, the Echo Nest recently wrapped up their second-ever Music Hack Day in Boston, which yielded over 50 fully-formed music apps using a variety of APIs including the Echo Nest’s database.

THE STATE OF MUSIC: SPOTIFY, MOG AND MORE

As July’s successful launch of Spotify on North American shores proves, music fans are hungry for a free service that offers access a massive library of songs from anywhere. Sadly, brand involvement with Pandora and Spotify so far has mostly been limited to brand-sponsored radio stations and vaguely associated playlists, respectively.

Competitor MOG offers another way to cut the ties that bind listeners to local libraries in favor of the cloud—not to mention countless other applications that are legally using labels’ catalogues in new and original ways. While MOG is perhaps more innovative in their solution to offering free streams of legal tunes, both platforms lean heavy on the ads (banner and audio) to foot the bill—paid placements that are decidedly interruptive in approach and unfitting for forward-thinking web 2.0 platforms.

Running web banners and audio spots between songs is not post-advertising. It’s traditional,  intrusive, and  intolerable in the long run by users. And if having to endure advertising on Spotify encourages a user to pony up for a subscribe just to avoid having to hear and see them, what does that tell you about Spotify’s commitment to advertisers? In this day and age, what brand should knowingly pay for these ads that are so obnoxious and repetitive they inspire the audience to  turn against your brand completely?

While Spotify’s free variant solely supports itself on the back of ad banners and ad spots between songs, MOG offers a more respectable solution: a limited number of songs for a given period of time, as indicated by an in-dashboard meter or “gas tank.” Increase it by performing a number of social tasks like sharing a playlist on Facebook, referring a friend or listening to one of the platform’s currently promoted artists—great ways to encourage discovery and, in the instance of sponsored artists, a great alternative to force-feeding it. Imagine, as an extension, brand-sponsored playlists that earn users more listens or a brand’s own MOG account, which can be followed in exchange for points. It’s not that far of a stretch.

The solution shouldn’t be to use archaic advertising methods as a negative reinforcement for fans to sign up for an unlimited, no-ad subscription (the rate of ads is expected to rise in the coming weeks as the “honeymoon” ends for us users). In the near future, such ad-baiting (if that’s what these services are really up to) won’t be tolerated by users—and, won’t be paid for by brands who will no longer accept anything less than meaningful partnerships that engage their audience.

HOW CAN BRANDS LEVERAGE NEW MUSIC PLATFORMS IN UNTRADITIONAL/NON-INTERRUPTIVE WAYS?

In order to understand how brands might better work with platforms like Pandora, Spotify and MOG, we must recognize what primarily makes these platforms work: music is an inherently social good. As such, every popular music app has experienced an explosion in new sign ups and activity since Facebook made recording, tracking and sharing listening habits simple and effortless. Famously announced at f8 by way of Spotify, another four million people have joined since September 22^nd. MOG has grown by 246% and Rdio 30-fold since the conference, reports Mashable.

What does this tell us? That each and every brand Page on Facebook should be working to include post brand-appropriate Spotify, MOG and similar platform content into future posts: curated playlists, select song shares when appropriate, contests calling for the best playlists or the creation of collaborative playlists. Lindsay Fultz at Middle Child New Media has a number of quick-and-easy ways to incorporate Spotify’s library and feature set. In general, these platforms offer the chance to incorporate music—an emotional touchstone and connective tissue of society—without legalities into any number of situations as a way to color a brand’s personality and content stream like never before.

SPECIAL RECOGNITION: BRANDS TAKING ON STREAMING MUSIC

Brand: Mercedes Benz
Platform/Service: Grooveshark
Campaign: The Coupe Remixes
Why It Works: German luxury automobile maker Mercedes Benz took things up a notch by working with streaming service Grooveshark recently on a full-scale remix contest. Listeners voted for their favorite song from a brand-curated list of 12. The top 8 were chosen to be remixed in an exclusive new album, “generated by you.” Perhaps a basic, limited contest, it still takes MB a step beyond the usual interruption-based advert, successfully getting the brand’s musical tastes across (“curated specifically for you”) while keeping the listener control of the contest (“generated by you”).

Brand: Lexus
Platform/Service: Pandora
Campaign: Engineering Amazing: Campaign site and on Pandora
Why It Works: Instead of simply linking off to a campaign website unrelated to Pandora, Lexus took the opportunity to produce a full radio station curated by Nic Harcourt around the idea of “future proof” as it relates to music. Part of their Engineering Amazing campaign, Lexus also produced a video with their tastemaker further elaborating on theme and how it relates to both music and Lexus’ sustainability efforts. An in-banner text field allows the listener to suggestion their own “future proof” song. Compelling stuff.

Furthermore, Lexus has integrated Pandora functionality into their next generation 2013 GS sedan’s Enform entertainment system, proving, as a brand, that they’re taking the platform seriously. Similarly, Ford announced its new Focus would feature Spotify connectivity.

WHAT DRINKIFY MEANS TO MARKETERS: AN OPPORTUNITY MISSED

Along with the brilliant-but-brand-challenged streaming, socially-spreading heavy hitters Spotify and MOG, there are similar platforms like Grooveshark and Rdio, slick discovery tools like Discovr, Pocket Hipster and Groovebug, uploading and sharing tools like Soundcloud and fun, ingenious one-off ideas like Turntable.fm and Drinkify. All these great tools are life-changing listener solutions, primed and ready to grow with the right partnership. (Case in point: MTV’s Music Meter, a match made in heaven.)

Drinkify in particular resonates as a telling example of a missed opportunity on the part of brands. Created as a part of Music Hack Day Boston 2011, the simple site generates the perfect drink to pair with any given artist or group. It uses a combination Last.fm’s API for photos, name corrections, the Echo Nest for artist info and their own proprietary drink database.

How about if Toasted Head wine (client) had developed the idea themselves? A specific Toasted Head version could focus on entertaining and more broadly play you a genre of music based on, say, type of wine you’re drinking, location (it looks at weather, climate) and environment (indoor/outdoor) in order to provide you a number of pairings—not just what music to pair with your wine, but which food, activities, conversation topics, movies and so on. Or perhaps still, imagine Drinkify as a helpful app from a large alcohol retailer to offer mixed drink package deals and as a way to introduce specials on certain artists/genres/etc.

At the very least, a site like Drinkify is ripe with opportunities for brand sponsorship—try searching for most indie bands and you’ll get Pabst Blue Ribbon or Red Stripe. What if the corresponding brands sponsored these drinks and funded functionality to locate PBR or Red Stripe at liquor stores or bars that offer PBR or Red Stripe drink specials?

On the subject of radio channels available on iTunes-like streaming music platforms that mimic Pandora’s approach, consider Spotify’s radio channel, which picks tunes based on which tag you select. What if Heineken had its own tab, which played pre-selected, brand-appropriate songs, like the ones regularly used in TV ads.

By licensing out their API or capabilities to a 3^rd party, groundbreaking platforms like Spotify and MOG can help sustain themselves better and at the same time stir genuine innovation—a brand’s content must be great in order to captivate and catch on, after all. On thing’s for sure: music’s future does not include ads that hold listeners hostage. In the listener’s world, the brand should be an active participant and have a personality formed around the subject matter. Anything less is advertising as usual.

What branding opportunities on these emerging platforms do you think have been missed?

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For me, a child of the 80s, there’s something special about a live event hosted by a brand that defined my youth. But in an age where more and more audiences are being reached digitally (versus with traditional methods), can live events produce enough ROI to make them worth it? Can such a traditional method of creating awareness be post-advertising? Are these events worth the time, money and effort they demand in a world where you can’t simply buy (read: interrupt) your way into people’s consciousness?

The answer to these questions can be yes if live events are made to be more than just a fun day out. Here are a few questions that must be asked when planning a live branded event:

Will it be entertaining?

By definition, post-advertising content is useful or entertaining or both. So useful and/or entertaining that audiences are compelled to share it with their networks, creating a snowball effect in marketing momentum. Any branded event must be entertaining just to draw an audience; we all know that. If it’s self-serving and won’t entertain, cease all efforts immediately and go back to the drawing board.

Will it generate buzz?

Entertaining is one thing. Being unique and so entertaining that it generates buzz is another. Many articles were written about the Super Mario 3D event, and user-generated content (UGC) can be found all over the web. That UGC can eventually be more important than traditional PR. Sure, being picked up by Yahoo! will help exposure, but it’s the UGC that is embedded in people’s Facebook news feeds, Twitter streams, blogs, emails and multimedia text messages that can reach targeted audiences.

The Super Mario event generated a few cool clips, and presumably hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures floated through social feeds that day.

Will it capture the brand’s essence?

Setting up a huge rock-climbing event in the middle of Central Park sounds pretty fun, but it doesn’t make sense if it’s sponsored by M&Ms. At the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Festival, geo-social app Foursquare set up a playground and hosted actual foursquare games, with CEO Dennis Crowley often getting into the mix. The line wrapped around the playground, and it’s one of the few brands that had an effect on me. Foursquare also made noise, literally, when they gave away free tickets for a private Big Boi concert to a selected few who checked into SXSW using their app. The concert itself didn’t necessarily align, but the way people achieved entry absolutely did.

Will it create marketing momentum?

Arguably the most important aspect of a post-advertising branded live event, considering the resources necessary to host one, is whether it can provide marketing momentum and return on investment.

For a marketing effort to be considered post-advertising, it must be only one part of a customer’s journey. As you create this great content, you keep the marketing moving along. That’s what can turn a passer-by into a brand evangelist: Providing an experience that furthers the audience’s journey in your brand’s story. How can your audience keep moving? Is there a place for them to upload their UGC (YouTube, Facebook)? What can they do after the event to ensure that the experience doesn’t start and end the same day?

Many live events fall on either of the two ends of the spectrum. Some are entertaining content that doesn’t move the audience to the next chapter of the story, so they aren’t post-advertising. Some are just self-serving advertising and don’t entertain or provide value, so they aren’t post-advertising either. It can be hard to find the center, where entertainment meets advertising, but it’s imperative for the brand to find it.

When planning these live events and experiences, make sure you’re connecting the dots for your audience. Give them an experience they’ll share with their friends. Motivate them to create a relationship with your brand. Make it easy for them to move along on their customer journey. Otherwise you’ll find that the value of these events is limited to a moment in time.

Which branded events or experiences have you found to be effective post-advertising?

(image via Escapist Magazine)

You’ll see the Posties evolve into something really big and über important in the coming months, but for its first incarnation, we thought we’d take a look at a space that’s near and dear to our hearts and award some of the best and brightest branded iPad applications.

Since we announced a panel and an interactive workshop addressing the Future of Branded Entertainment at our upcoming Post-Advertising Summit, we’ve been looking into our crystal ball (yes, it’s real) and gazing at what’s in store for brands as technology and the available channels seem to grow exponentially.

With a steady incline in the number of brands releasing mobile applications, it’s evident that brands have realized the ability for the growing medium to deliver useful content in ways that wow. Sixty-six percent of the top brands have iPad apps, and almost as many (59 percent) have Android apps as well.

Of course, just having an app doesn’t mean it’s any good. It takes a lot of work and creativity to walk the thin line between promoting the brand story and providing content that’s useful, entertaining or both.

So go ahead: Walk the red carpet, uncomfortably pose for the cameras and make your way to your seat for a sneak preview of the Postie Awards for Branded iPad Applications!

Jamie Oliver – Jamie’s Recipes

See it here.

To be a member of iTunes’ iPad App Hall of Fame is one thing, but winning a Postie will surely be the feather in Jamie’s cap. Also known as the “Naked Chef,” Jamie offers downloaders countless recipes (both free and paid), vibrant imagery, videos, shopping lists and more, all backed by the Jamie Oliver brand. It may seem easy to create a cooking-related app when you’re a chef, but he’s come out on top in a sea of other foodie options for iPad owners.

Marvel Comics

See it here.

The Marvel iPad application has been around for a while now, but its innovations still keep it among the leaders in the branded-application category. Our own Kirk Cheyfitz, Story Worldwide CEO, provided his insight on why this app is so innovative and therefore worthy of a Postie:

Museum of Modern Art – EX NY App

See it here.

An art museum can be post-advertising? What?! That’s right. MoMA caught our eye with an innovative iPad application designed specifically for its Abstract Expressionist New York exhibit. The application lets users enjoy the exhibit remotely, prepare for their visits or relive their experiences at the museum. One of the inherent problems with expressing art digitally, particularly for the passive user, is the inability to immerse oneself in it. What does it mean? Where did it come from? What’s the story? This app provides a truly useful and educational experience with videos, essays, author biographies and educational content that demystifies the exhibits. A Webby Award winner, MoMA has successfully extended its reach beyond the walls of the museum and on to your iPad. Oh, and there’s a video with a cat. #winning!

Livestrong – Calorie Counter

See it here.

The Livestrong brand permeates through the cycling and philanthropic communities, and it’s a titan in the food and fitness categories as well. It’s put a near stranglehold on the calorie-counting category, and its iPad app demonstrates this. Standing as one of the top-five most downloaded (paid-for) iPad apps ever, Calorie Tracker isn’t that gorgeous, but it’s incredibly useful for people serious about holding themselves accountable for what they eat. The usefulness of this app compels users to equate the Livestrong brand not just to philanthropy, but also healthy living. Thus, they’re more likely to turn to the Livestrong site (which is impressively straightforward) when looking for answers to their health- and fitness-related questions. (I know I do.)

RCI – Endless Vacation

See it here.

What was once a custom-published magazine in print only, Endless Vacation (from RCI, a client of Story) moved beyond the boundaries of glossy paper and into the iPad. The application allows readers to delve deeper with interactive articles, photo galleries, alternate covers (just shake it!), panoramas and more. RCI, the largest timeshare vacation network in the world and publisher of Endless Vacation magazine, has embraced the future of advertising and focused on creating the great content that its readers want, helping the brand own the travel category.

Congrats to all our winners! Enjoy the after-party and please, don’t text and drive. (Okay, this wasn’t actually the Posties, but keep your eyes peeled for the real Post-Advertising Awards in 2012.)

Which branded iPad apps did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

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As difficult as it is to create viral media, it’s even harder when it’s branded. Audiences typically wouldn’t dare be caught propagating viral content produced by a brand. It’s sort of like inviting your parents to your party: They may be perfectly fine people with a great sense of humor, but just the fact that they’re, well, parents makes them inherently uncool. So what’s a brand to do?

Most viral content wasn’t created to be that way. I surely hope David’s dad didn’t think of YouTube views when the dentist turned up the nitrous oxide or Charlie as he bit his brother’s finger. Most content that garners viral success comes from such humble beginnings, but does that mean it’s impossible for brands to create content that can spread like this?

No.

Three Secrets to Viral Marketing Success

While few brands can claim they’ve achieved viral success on purpose, multiple times, an LA-based musical quartet OK Go can. OK Go is very well known, and it’s not because of their music—it’s because of their music videos, which have been viewed more than 100,000,000 times. Below are some lessons that can be learned from OK Go.

1. You Might Fail. Actually, You Probably Will Fail.

When OK Go presented their music video for “Here it Goes Again” to the Capitol Records’ head of digital marketing, he told them that if the video ever got out, they’d sink. It was a very real risk. There was no guarantee that the audience would find the video funny or entertaining and would pass it along to friends. OK Go’s video broke every pre-conceived notion of music videos, all the way down to its $5,000 price tag. However, the video was shared and spread with more than 50 million views. (Note: It has since been removed and reposted under the EMI brand with fewer hits.)

Lesson for Brands:

You’re not going to create content without the risk of it not going viral. That’s not to say you shouldn’t expect positive results, but be prepared to take a few swings before you hit a homerun. Every brand wants a plan to create viral marketing, but once you set that as a goal, you are destined to fail.

2. Create Wildly Entertaining Content.

Each one of OK Go’s videos keep the audience’s eyes glued to their screen. In their second video for “This Too Shall Pass” they constructed an intricate and massive Rube Goldberg Machine, in a two-story warehouse, which operated all song long. No matter who you are, it’s probably the biggest Rube Goldberg Machine you’ve ever seen.

Cost: $30,000.
Views: 31,000,000+.

Lesson for Brands:

Whether you’re watching them dance unexceptionally on eight treadmills or watching marbles collide with each other to the beat, their content is enjoyable. No matter what your content is, even if it is traditionally boring, find ways to make it entertaining to your audience, like hiring Richard Simmons and dressing your staff in 80′s workout clothes. Care about them first. What will resonate? What will cause them to proactively share your content?

3. Create Content That Can’t Be Found Anywhere

The content certainly entertains, but it’s the uniqueness of each video that truly drives virality. In their third video, “White Knuckles,” the band hired 50 dogs and trainers for a three-minute 36-second choreographed cup stacking/puppy fest. It’s obvious how much planning was necessary, and there’s no question that every one of these videos was painstaking and difficult. But the result is something you can’t find anywhere else. If you want to see a video like this, you can only search for an OK Go music video. Not to mention, the videos are so amazing that the behind-the-scenes and making-of clips received hundreds of thousands of views on their own.

Lesson for Brands:

Think about this the next time you repurpose existing content hoping for viral success. Be prepared to commit time and energy to come up with a unique idea. Your Old Spice parody will never create as much buzz as the original. It’s the same mistake the Columbus Dispatch made when it failed to harness Ted Williams’s viral wave (the homeless man with the radio voice). eBooks, webinars and blog posts are great, but there are so many already out there. If you hope to find success in branded viral marketing, you need to reach further than anyone else has.

Ultimately, brands need to move away from the idea of viral in and of itself. I even feel a little dirty having talked about it, like I’ve been writing about get-rich-quick schemes or how to lose weight without ever working out. Your goal shouldn’t be to create the next viral sensation. It should be to create useful, entertaining and relevant content that your audience will enjoy and proactively pass along to their other audiences, expanding the reach and exposure of your brand.

What branded viral marketing successes have you seen? What are some more elements of a successful viral marketing campaign?

It’s the evolution of technology. We know that the televisions we’re watching, the cars we’re driving, and certainly the laptop I’m writing this post on will all seem like relics in 5-10 years. It’s inevitable, and just a matter of time. But the importance to marketers of this evolution is not simply that it’s happening, but the effects of these evolutions on the way we consume our content.

From the early 80’s to the early 00’s, the appearance and capabilities of our computers and televisions changed drastically, but they remained our primary means of content consumption. We still used our phones to call our loved ones and the only place to watch TV was on the TV. But in the last decade, things have turned upside down. The emergence of tablets, e-readers, and streaming audio/video has created a grey area of where exactly we are all consuming content. It’s conceivable that in a day you’ll read a book on your tablet, call your parents on your computer (with video, of course), rent a movie on your video game console and use your phone to watch live television. Audiences are consuming content everywhere and it’s up to content producers to make sure they’re reaching them in the appropriate places.

There’s also evidence that these new channels are not only being used, but result in more content consumption than ever before. According to recent studies, digital readers own (virtually) and read more books than do other readers. Also, tablet users consume a greater variety and volume of content on their devices than users of traditional channels. The inherent interactivity of tablet devices (versus reading the newspaper left on your doorstep) encourages in-depth exploration of content as well. The future of entertainment is poised to result in the embrace of content, branded or otherwise, across non-traditional mediums.

Whether technology is simplifying our world or not, the technology landscape is anything but simple for content marketers. We’ve moved beyond the age where brands need to be convinced that content marketing isn’t optional (if you believe it is, then your ship is about to capsize) into an age where audiences expect to be reached, properly, in all the places they hang out, during the times they want to be reached. This means moving a print magazine onto the tablet, creating engaging 3D games, including social components (ex: tweeting with audience members) during live events, or turning your service into an iPhone app.

This also means that hiring siloed agencies who can only help brands move into a singular discipline, like Facebook or mobile content, won’t fit into a long-term content plan. Yes, you should have a social presence, but how will they help you when the next technology emerges? How will the Facebook agency help you create content for those mediums? If your brand’s strategy is to hire a handful of single-channel agencies (who most likely don’t play nice with each other), how will you adjust to the changing technological landscape? Can you afford to keep adding agencies to your budget?

If nothing else, the paradigm of how we view media has been completely shattered. Televisions aren’t just televisions. Game consoles don’t just play video games. Cell phones don’t just make phone calls. The future of content marketing exists in one crazy, ever-evolving technological solar system, and we’re just living in it. So how will you reach your audience?

Sorry Hansel. The future of content marketing isn’t in your computer…

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Contributing authors: Charles Coxe, Chuck Wentzel, Karen Nagy, and Katie Edmondson

CNN business reporter Alison Kosik tweeted to the world on October 4: “Purpose in 140 words or less: bang on the bongos, smoke weed!” She later apologized and deleted the tweet, but to be fair, she was far from the only otherwise sensible journalist who curiously dismissed a massive grassroots uprising taking hold, for many of them, right outside their front door. (Erin Burnett said on air, “What are they protesting? No one seems to know.” Most Fox News anchors and reporters dismissed the protestors as hippies, druggies, and do-nothing college kids, while presidential candidate Herman Cain dusted off The Man’s Woodstock-era exhortation to “get a job.” Even NPR executive editor Dick Meyer explained away his organization’s lack of coverage by claiming the protests didn’t “involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.”)

That lack of “an especially clear objective” is something that has flummoxed scores of journalists and commentators over the past weeks as they’ve tried to balance their job to report on a movement capturing the public consciousness with their reluctance to attach meaning to something that doesn’t automatically spit out easy sound bites. Why can’t the Occupy Wall Street protestors just tell us what they want? is the common refrain (conveniently ignoring the fact that the first Tea Party rallies called for everything from lower taxes to removing evolution from school curriculums to President Obama’s impeachment/birth certificate—or the fact that the original Tea Party in 1773 was more about maintaining colonial control of government officials and local tea smugglers getting undercut in price than it was about any unfair taxation.) Democracy is an inherently sloppy process, and the reality of any grassroots movement is that it takes time for consensus and its message to coalesce.

To be fair, the media isn’t to blame for misrepresenting these demonstrations as much as its 24/7 cycle, which practically requires that the latest, loudest voice gets the airtime. In the Quaker-style open democracy of the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly, the demands change as quickly as the voices do. What are they against? Banks? Capitalism? Greed? Unemployment? Poverty? Corruption? Politicians? All of the above, and then some. And what do they feel is the solution? No one seems to have an answer to that question yet, but that may be the best place to start.

Consumer brands often find themselves in a similar crisis of mixed messaging after years of marketing led by different internal and external agency voices. To help them find their core story, we help them conduct workshops that begin with pre-workshop consumer research and competitive analysis, then go through brand identity exercises that define the true personality of the brand to guide messaging for years to come—what’s called their Story Platform. The Occupy Wall Street protesters, much like these brands, have a wealth of voices and important messages, but lack that platform to tie it all together in a way that unites attention toward a common goal. Much like Occupy Wall Street, brands often have diverse messages, but it’s important to find a theme or central thought around which all communications can be built.

The Occupy Wall Street Workshop

As an exercise in dealing with our own frustration over hearing the same “What are their demands?” news reports ad infinitum (and to prove to ourselves that the protesters’ messaging wasn’t quite as scattershot as portrayed), we decided to take Occupy Wall Street through this discovery process ourselves to help it find its Story Platform, a brief encapsulation of the emotional heart of the movement, to give coherence to its messaging. The aim is not to bring ruthless uniformity to all communications—a single mantra to be repeated endlessly—but instead, to give consistency to all activity without stifling creativity. As protestor Shawn Redden told The New York Times this weekend, “We absolutely need demands—like Frederick Douglass said, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’” And if they want to receive more focused mainstream media attention, Occupy Wall Street groups need to be more focused in their Story Platform.

As preliminary research, we drew on interviews with participants as well as published documents to compile a core list of demands stemming from their basic principle that our government has failed and our form of capitalism isn’t working. Motivated by a common idea of social justice (although defined in a myriad of ways), the list of demands includes:

1. Restoration of a living wage
2. Universal healthcare
3. Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment
4. Free college education
5. An end to the use of fossil fuels and a fast track to alternate energy
6. More money spent on infrastructure
7. More money spent on the environment
8. A racial and gender equal rights amendment
9. Open-borders migration
10. Election reform with impartial observation
11. Debt forgiveness for all
12. An end to credit-reporting agencies
13. No restrictions on unions
14. No taxpayer-funded bank bailouts
15. Regulate government lobbying

Exercise 1: Label the Target Audience

Before defining the core narrative through the Story Platform, we first had to inform it by performing various exercises. The first was to research and identify the target audience. Who are protesters targeting? Are they yelling at banks and corporations for irresponsible practices? Greedy politicians who would rather benefit from Wall Street than hold them accountable for the system’s flaws? Or is it their fellow Americans who currently accept the status quo? Since the ultimate goal is to bring about positive change, the primary audience of OWS is (through the megaphone of the news media) the broad general public—especially Millennials, who entered adulthood with promises of the American Dream that for all too many feel unfulfilled. Occupy Wall Street wants these people to band together to realize that their current misfortune is not their fault. The target of change is not Wall Street brokers, corporations and government leaders—these people will not likely be swayed by the opinions of a few radicals. Instead, they want to alter the entire nation’s viewpoint, because the more widespread the movement, the better chance the protesters have of actually enacting significant change.

Exercise 2: SWOT Analysis

Next, we typically conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), which takes a look at the external forces affecting the broad brand picture, as a way of better informing the platform. For Occupy Wall Street, this resulted in:

Strengths: numbers, press coverage, passion, longevity, celebrity endorsements, international support, interactivity, online presence, grassroots nature

Weaknesses: unfocused, no coherent platform, no leader, negative/confused public perception

Opportunities: gaining public support, increased media interest, wide reach, upcoming presidential elections, ongoing economic crisis

Threats: media losing interest, logistics, muddled message, public distrust and dislike, legal action, other grassroots political movements

Exercise 3: Explore Brand Metaphors

The third exercise uses the power of metaphors for exploring different aspects of a brand’s personality. Although it may seem off-topic, metaphors are colorful, high-impact shorthand that can convey how people feel about a brand more vividly than straightforward research. Metaphors also help us explain what feels right and wrong about a brand and its public perception. For Occupy Wall Street, this exercise identified the movement as being like…

An inventor, because it wants to turn big ideas into reality.
A nurse, because it’s trying to heal the country’s ills.
A self-help book, because it’s trying to help people solve their problems.
A helmet, because it’s trying to protect people.
A rolling snowball, because it’s gaining momentum.
Nelson Mandela, because it’s a tireless force for revolutionary change.

Exercise 4: Archetypes

We use archetypes as a vivid way of personifying and thereby instilling meaning into brands. There are 12 core archetypes that can represent and define a brand (developed by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson in their book The Hero & The Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes), from the Innocent (wholesome, pure, forgiving, trusting, honest, happy optimistic, enjoys simple pleasures) to the Magician (shaman, healer, spiritual, holistic, intuitive, values magical moments and special rituals, catalyst for change, charismatic). Ultimately, each represent the various characteristics of how a brand should see itself.

Almost by definition, Occupy Wall Street does not yet have a solid vision of itself, but interviews show that many of the protesters think of themselves as “The Hero”: a warrior, competitive, aggressive, a winner, principled, an idealist, who challenges wrongs, improves the world, is proud, courageous, brave, and sacrifices himself for the greater good. Interestingly, most in the media seem to view the protesters more as “The Outlaw”: rebellious, shocking, outrageous, disruptive, feared, powerful, counter-cultural, revolutionary, and liberated. After analysis, it seems that both of these archetypes give only a small part of the picture, with too much room for erroneous interpretation. We’ve instead identified Occupy Wall Street, in its current state, as “The Explorer”: a searcher, seeker, adventurous, restless, who desires excitement, independent, self-directed, self-sufficient, and values freedom. In order for them to achieve their goal of being the Hero archetype, the movement would need to focus on turning its ideas into reality—by actually “improving the world” through “principled” and “idealistic” actions. For now, it’s still searching for the right answers.

Exercise 5: Story Circles

Normally, a brand would select a number of words it believes it embodies, and consumers would explain what that word means to them. In this case, we drew on words often repeated in various interviews with protesters as key over-arching terms. We (acting as the general public) then linked them to associated qualities.

“Justice” (fair, right, authentic, transparent, true, honorable)

“Principles” (faithful, ethical, upstanding, righteous, respectable, noble)

“Community” (together, society, culture, cooperation, collaboration, support)

“Relationships” (interaction, kinship, bonding, love, family, emotion, caring)

“Commitment” (steadfast, determination, passionate, dedication, perseverance)

“Awareness” (intelligent, motivated, involved, interested, illuminating)

Exercise 6: The IQ Test

Rather than “Intelligence Quotient,” this test outlines a brand’s powerful immediate Impact (the “I” in “IQ”) as well as the more measured Quality of engagement over time (the “Q”) that deepens a consumer’s relationship with a brand, through both rational and emotional messages. Most brands are naturally stronger in some quadrants than others; by identifying a brand’s weak and strong areas, the IQ Test can guide brand acquisition and retention strategies. For Occupy Wall Street, this is a reminder that to be successful in winning hearts and minds, they have to make sure to hit both emotional and rational notes, both at impact and over time.

Rational Impact: This is information that a creative execution must get across immediately.

• Dedicated
• Committed
• Here to stay
• Worthy cause
• Justified

Emotional Impact: This is how an audience should feel immediately.

• Makes me angry about the system
• Makes me distrust Wall Street
• Makes me question Washington
• Makes me want to learn
• Makes me want change

Rational Quality of Engagement: This is information the audience should learn over time.

• Corporate greed is hurting American citizens
• The government is not holding banks accountable
• Our current economic direction is not sustainable
• Social and economic justice has been neglected
• It is possible to envision a better country

Emotional Quality of Engagement: This is how the audience should come to feel over time.

• I am angry that these wrongs have never been addressed
• I am confident that the mission is the right thing to do
• I feel empowered to help the cause
• I feel like I can actually change the system
• We can create a better life for everyone

The Story Platform

Activists have come together in cities worldwide in increasing numbers to take a largely nonviolent stand against corporate greed, economic inequality, and a government influenced by corporate money and lobbyists. They see themselves as liberators, fighting for their future—for everyone’s future—and fighting to guarantee the next generation entering into the work force will not face an unjust, corrupt economy as they did. They are educating each other and the world about economic systems and the government’s role in manipulating them. They are taking the initiative to express the frustrations of the masses who have, knowingly or not, been cheated by the current system, begging those in power to do the right thing. If there’s a common theme to their complaints, it could be: Life isn’t fair, because corporations aren’t playing fair.

At Story Worldwide, we work with numerous brands to tell their stories across marketing channels by creating content guided by the creation of a Story Platform, an encapsulation of the emotional heart of a brand. As the name implies, it is an enduring idea that will serve as the consistent basis for the many stories that a successful brand must tell over time. It’s important to understand that a Story Platform isn’t a tagline or a descriptor; it’s not something that is meant to appear in a brand’s advertising or language a brand would use when communicating to its customers. Instead, as the emotional heart of a brand and its messaging, it is the single thought that should be apparent in everything a brand says, the core narrative that should be in every story that the brand, its audience and potential audience members, the media and the general public tell about the brand. For Occupy Wall Street, this platform, formed through detailed research and careful analysis and informed by the brand archetype, is the core theme of its message, the purpose or objective the media should find at the heart of everything the movement communicates.

Occupy Wall Street’s Story Platform:

Reform Capitalism, Rediscover Responsibility

Platform Pillars:

The following pillars further explain areas of concern for Occupy Wall Street that help support the foundation of the Story Platform while also providing avenues for the movement’s activities toward solutions.

1. Meaningful Government Oversight

The first and most fundamental belief is that government regulations must fairly regulate corporate behavior in favor of the greater good of society, without unfairly limiting the ability of corporations to make a reasonable profit against their investments. Corporate influence of government officials—from the local to national level—must be prohibited and closely monitored with substantial penalties for violations. Corporations that do not allow government oversight or do not abide by governmental regulations cannot expect the government to subsidize their continued existence through business-facilitating infrastructure, let alone underwrite their financial rescue in times of economic crisis.

2. Transparency/Accountability

Government agencies, Congress, corporations, financial institutions, and any other organizations that have the power to direct the course of society, must all perform their duties with transparency so that their actions may be reviewed and assessed by the public they serve. Each organization must be held accountable for the consequences of its actions in fair and meaningful ways—from voter referendums at the polls to prison sentences when appropriate and adjudicated by the legal system. This idea extends down to the personal level, where individuals must also learn to live their lives with equal accountability—contributing to society as a whole and living within their own means.

3. Fair Play/Opportunity

Access to opportunity should not be limited only to those who have already succeeded. Government oversight and transparency must work to create an environment where those with the passion and drive can find ways to access the tools and resources they need to create their own success. Limiting access for and creating unreasonable barriers against fledgling competitors can only be deemed as unfair business practices and must no longer be tolerated as acceptable ways of doing business.

4. Earned Rewards/American Dream

Members of our society have the right to expect that their pursuit of education and/or commitment to gaining expertise through work experience will result in employment that is compatible with their abilities, and that they will be compensated with a fair living wage. Corporations may not deny our country’s people the realization of the American Dream by outsourcing jobs to other countries while receiving subsidies or any other government aid. Companies must operate under a social justice responsibility to the greater good, reinvesting in the culture and economy that supplies their workers, their customers and their profits.

5. Sharing the Burden

The profits of success must be shared with the same generosity as is the burden of failure. Government oversight must strive to reduce the probability and impact of corporate and government failures, but must operate with the policy that individuals cannot not be expected to underwrite the cost of rescuing corporations that have not fairly and meaningfully reinvested into society. Furthermore, government regulations must prevent corporations from trying to recoup these loses through unfair business practices that shift the burden of repayment to those who were not responsible, allowing unethical and criminal behavior to go unpunished.

6. Building a Sustainable System

Society must refocus its efforts on building a system that is stable and sustainable, where success provides the opportunity for investing in activities that serve the greater good, and every reasonable effort has been made to mitigate the potential for and impact of failure. The current state of the economy must be cured, but the solution must be farsighted. Abusive government oversight that hampers the ability of corporations to prosper is not the solution, but neither is a system where corporations are empowered to recklessly seek profits at any cost to the economy, society or the environment. Rather, the goal is a balance that encourages free-market capitalism without neglecting the reality that no one becomes rich on his or her own. Society—through its educational systems, support services, health care, government agencies, among others—contributes to the success of every company and every individual. Those debts must willingly and fairly be repaid to society. It is the only hope for building a sustainable, shared success for this nation.

Moving Forward

About as close to a pure, open democracy as we’ve seen since ancient Athens, the Occupy Wall Street movement is finding serious difficulty reaching consensus on anything beyond the fact that everyone is angry and feels cheated by the system. As the days go by, segments of the group in New York and other locations are finding their voice, and realizing that using it to convey demands is a way to garner more media attention—but they’re also learning that in a group where everyone is a part of the voice, one dissenter has the power to object and have a demand removed. Hopefully the thinking outlined here, or an exercise like it, will help those involved come to an understanding about the solutions they want to see. Because regardless of your political beliefs, these protestors don’t appear to be going away anytime soon—and the sooner they can articulate that message (and yes, it will be easiest in a media-friendly sound bite)—the sooner everyone can roll up their sleeves and get to work breaking the path forward.

So when we see campaigns based on crowdsourcing—basically turning the effort over to the general population at a cheaper price—it makes us wonder if what we do is worth it. After all, some of these public-created campaigns are good. Really good. Inspired even. But, of course, there’s the risk that the public can derail your entire campaign and ruin the years of brand cred your company spent millions of dollars creating. In light of that ominous thought, here are five crowdsourced campaigns, creations and ideas that are truly remarkable.

Harley-Davidson “No Cages”

Harley’s first foray into crowdsourced advertising began with this concept by Whit Hiler, brought to life in the video above. Advertising partner and crowdsourcing shop Victors & Spoils put the creative brief online and opened it up to the masses. The company picked Hiler’s idea and helped refine it. It seems crowdsourced advertising is something Harley-Davidson is considering for more campaigns. Harley CMO Mark-Hans Richer said, “We are uniquely able to use crowdsourcing for all of our major creative because of the passion and advocacy of a broad customer base all over the world. This process has helped to liberate the creativity of our most passionate of fans.”

Murakami

Sometimes the crowdsourcing of advertising is unintentional, as was the case with this billboard for a Murakami exhibit at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Graffiti artists AUGER and REVOK tagged the billboard, which was taken down two days later. However, the “modification” received a fair amount of press thus bringing more attention to the exhibit. Furthermore, Murakami himself enjoyed the graffiti so much that he had the billboard taken down and shipped to his studio in Japan.

(Photo Credit: Ribbon Controller)

The Vaccines “Wetsuit”

It’s been years (or, more accurately, decades) since MTV regularly played music videos on its channel. Without that outlet, bands and record companies have steered away from creating expensive videos and put their efforts toward more traditional publicity routes such as touring, YouTube and grassroots endeavors. But The Vaccines turned to crowdsourcing and the über-popular mobile photo-sharing app Instagram to create its latest inexpensive music video. The band asked fans to take photos at music festivals and tag them with #vaccinesvideo. After receiving nearly 3,000 submissions, the band created the video above, almost entirely made from Instagram photos.

The Icelandic Constitution

How can a country where most of the population believes in elves use such 21st-century channels as social media and crowdsourcing to create a new constitution? And yet Iceland did just that, using Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter to lead a discussion about the country’s future. Taking comments and suggestions from those sites, a group of 25 ordinary citizens consolidated the ideas and presented a draft of the constitution to Iceland’s parliament, which will be reviewed on October 1st.

(Photo Credit: Chris 73)

Microsoft “NUAds”

Well, isn’t this a kick in the NUAds! Microsoft is making advertising (more) social using its Kinect interface for Xbox 360 and harnessing the power of crowds. Users will now be able to use voice and motion to interact with ads on the console, in videos or embedded in games. The crowdsourcing comes into play as this technology allows users to Tweet about certain ads (by saying “Xbox tweet”) or learning more about the ads (by saying “Xbox more”). The use of gamers’ photos and voices can be added into these ads—allowing them to become spokespeople for these brands.

Crowdsourcing is positioned to become a cheap and effective way to promote brands. And, while there are risks involved, careful monitoring and planning can often lead to successful results. And who knows? It may even restructure an entire country and its elven brethren.

What do you think about crowdsourcing? Too risky? Too lazy? Or does it put brand messages in the mouths of the right people?

(Lead Photo)

Amit Gupta was a regular ol’ human being like the rest of us. An entrepreneur living in San Francisco, Amit founded Photojojo and Jelly, among many other endeavors—until just a few short weeks ago, when everything changed. That’s when he received a call from his doctor telling him he had Acute Leukemia and needed to pack up and enter treatment right away.

Amit is currently undergoing arduous chemotherapy, but his next hurdle is even larger. He’ll need a bone marrow transplant, and minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow pool. Amit is of South Asian descent, and is urging those of similar descent to test themselves to see if they might be a match. The bone marrow testing kit is free and takes literally seconds to perform (I’ve done it). But spreading the word and motivating people of similar descent to enter the donor pool is no easy or simple task.

Enter: the power of social media. Let’s find out how Amit has reached out over the vast social web to find himself a match—and the touching story it’s evolved into.

Going “Viral”

One man with a plea for help. It’s a heart-wrenching story, except it doesn’t stop there, and it’s not just a single man. What started as a single blog post exploded across the social media universe. Seth Godin, a good friend of Amit, wrote a blog post about his cause and suggested a Twitter hashtag — #iswabbedforAmit. He even offered any bone marrow match a $10,000 check for themselves or the charity of their choice. Numerous other offers have been Tweeted and blogged, including a free first class round-trip flight to NYC. The outpouring of support has surely warmed the heart of Gupta, whose story has been featured on NBC, CNN Money, The Next Web, and numerous other outlets.

There’s no misconception that Amit is the only person of South Asian descent suffering from Acute Leukemia. But while there are certainly self-serving rewards to the movement to swab for Amit, a rising tide lifts all boats. The more people become aware of the desperate need for bone marrow donors, the more likely it is that a given Acute Leukemia sufferer’s life will be saved.

Social Media Storytelling

We often say here at Post-Advertising and Story that great stories spread, and those with the best stories win. In this story, Amit isn’t the hero—he’s the mentor. We, the public (particularly those of S. Asian descent), are the heros, called to action to take 5 minutes of our day to order a kit (for free), swab our cheek, and mail it back. And the potential reward? Saving lives, plus all the aforementioned perks (and more that weren’t mentioned). That’s a story that will spread.

Social media has the power to turn the voice of one into the voice of many. When brands create media that informs or entertains (or both), they can empower their audience to spread that media to their audiences. That’s exactly what’s happening here—Amit’s story has empowered individuals (Amit’s audience) to spread the story to their own audiences (me sharing it on Twitter, Facebook, and this blog). With every share, the investment in the original piece of media goes further and further, extending to months or even years.

What can brands learn from Amit’s story?

First, find the story at the heart of your brand—the one that targets their hearts, not just their wallets—and tell that story. Your brand is unlikely to have a story in any way similar to Amit’s, but that doesn’t mean your story won’t resonate. Maybe you’re just a salad dressing brand, but have you helped thousands of people lose weight? Maybe you are simply a manufacturer of widgets, but do you do this exclusively in your home country creating new jobs? Selling a $3 product once will only get you so far, but a story will work for your brand for far longer.

Second, find ways to create good in the world, inherently creating a shock and awe effect. In other words, give more than just a few coupons or a free t-shirt. Seth Godin is a friend of Amit’s, but his willingness to contribute to the cause has further endeared the Godin brand to many readers. You don’t have to be saving the world to be a brand that’s talked about, but you do need to take actions that are bold, unique, and truly make a difference. Converse did this when they built a recording studio in Brooklyn for musicians to use… for free. It’s not about broadcasting your charitable causes, but stepping up and making a difference in a way that makes sense to your brand and your audience.

If you’d like to help Amit and his cause, you can follow him on his Tumblr account, Twitter account, or simply go here to order a free test by mail.

The good news is that the days since then have shown that change, while it will always frighten some people (an effect that seems to be amplified a thousand-fold when it comes to Facebook—Pete Cashmore went in a single CNN article from “you’ll revolt” and “you will hate” to “Facebook has unleashed something so remarkable that you didn’t even recognize it at first: A meaningful social network”), will be a good thing for this medium—especially for brands. And it all makes logical financial sense that it should. Although being the biggest player on the social media block will always be important to Zuckerberg and Co., the real success comes from monetizing the network they’ve worked so hard to build and expand. In order to do that, brands need to be successful in the space. As Mashable’s Todd Wasserman put it yesterday, “It could be the Facebook advertising solution that turns advertising partners (brands) into better social media communicators and gets Facebook members to start recommending and sharing advertisers as much as they do the latest cat video.” In other words, in order for brands to be successful on Facebook, they now, more than ever, have to tell a compelling story.

Viewed through that lens, it’s easier to see how many of the changes being rolled out at Facebook over the next few weeks (explained in detail below) will not only make the user experience more engaging, but also will make it easier for brands to tell their story in engaging ways—and to more easily share and spread that story among fans and potential fans. As has been true in the broader advertising realm for a few years now, the key to success for brands will be creating engaging content that fans feel compelled to share and spread.

Timeline

What It Is: If Facebook up until this point has been a momentary snapshot of your life, then Timeline will turn it into a deep digital scrapbook. It’s obvious that this feature is meant to be the focus of the new Facebook; Zuckerberg said they spent a year developing it when they unveiled it last week. “It’s the heart of your Facebook experience, completely rethought from the ground up,” he said. “Timeline is the story of your life.” The aim is to make the profile page more accurately reflect who you are as a person, showing your growth (and, crucially, activity) over time, and with a more attractive design with space for a large photo.

What It Means for Brands: This change is an inarguable win, as it allows brands to carefully craft their own story, turning their Facebook profile into something more akin to a visual corporate “about” page with fan interaction tacked on below. Assuming the brand maintains consistent messaging over time, it allows brands to convey that intended message all at once, with more space to present beautiful creative accomplishments. Just be sure that the big beautiful 840×310 image you choose to utilize as your main profile shot also makes sense if you only see the bottom half of it—as that’s what it will be cropped to in the default view.

The Updated News Feed

What It Is: The majority of media attention on the Facebook changes so far has focused on the new News Feed that has already rolled out, splitting the old version into different components determined by relevance and gives greater emphasis to visuals. The main news feed still includes status updates from most of your friends, but much like a newspaper it displays the most important stories (determined by relevance to you) at the top “above the fold,” with other recent stories continuing below. Even these lower-tier stories are limited to those with a higher level of relevance, with a small “# More Recent Stories” prompt in the upper right corner of the feed to click to display those of lesser relevance. (How is such “relevance” determined? Well, that is still a bit of a closely guarded Facebook secret, but it’s an on-steroids version of the EdgeRank algorithm they’ve used in the past. On a basic level, it prioritizes friends, family, pages, etc. based on how much you have interacted with their content, and how recently.) The bulk of other Facebook actions—friends commenting on other people’s posts or photos, interacting with apps (such as listening to music on Spotify) or, crucially, liking a brand page—are now relegated to a Twitter-esque scrolling “Ticker” in the top right corner of the page.

What It Means for Brands: This change, in particular, is a tough one for companies to swallow. Not only are most casual interactions with brands now relegated to a space that people are already beginning to identify as a gutter of unwanted content, but depending on the browser, when users have the window below a certain size, this Ticker can push advertisements below it, inevitably decreasing the number of eyeballs that see a given ad. For most brands, it will be a primary goal to get out of people’s Ticker and into their main news feed. And the best way to do that is by creating content that people are inspired to like, comment on, and share.

Frictionless Sharing

What It Is: No longer will people be limited to merely “liking” or “sharing” a page. They will soon be able to have all sorts of interactions, such as “reading” a magazine article or “watching” a TV show, and more—although Facebook will only initially add this functionality for articles, music and video, they say it will be opened up to developers in the near future, meaning that at some point users could be able to click that they “tasted” a wine at an event or “drove” a specific model of car. And once enabled for a site, this sharing will be done automatically, without the need for a user to click a button to do it manually (or the ability to choose what gets shared and what doesn’t).

What It Means for Brands: This customization phase is still a little ways off, as the first phase has to roll out before it can be adapted by developers, but the possibilities are as endless as the apps that could utilize them. As a brand, especially one with multiple products, it may be important to signify how fans are interacting with your product beyond merely liking your brand. For a feel for how this frictionless sharing or passive application interactions will work, just look at the notifications in your Ticker of your friends’ Spotify activity, where users are automatically expressing their app interactions to their friends without any manual sharing.

Tracking Technology

What It Is: Beyond the class-action lawsuit, Facebook is now facing new uproar over a little cookie that they’ve tried to sweep under the rug. The cookie in question, called “datr” and enabled by the Facebook Connect “like” buttons scattered across the web, tracks and logs browsers’ activity whether they’re logged into Facebook or not, as first reported in May by the Wall Street Journal. Although Facebook claimed it had been disabled, Australian programmer and blogger Nik Cubrilovic discovered last week that it was still busily tracking his movements across sites and IDing him with his Facebook identity, despite the fact that he had already logged out of Facebook. (Facebook has since responded that it was a bug that it is trying to fix, saying that “no information we receive when you see a social plugin is used to target ads.”). With Congress now pushing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook over privacy concerns, this is certainly a developing story.

What It Means for Brands: Despite all the media attention, there’s very little here to concern brands, unless the FTC cracks down hard on Facebook or the bad press causes people to leave the site in droves (the former is highly unlikely, the latter completely impossible). Should the tracking be forced to cease, users would then have to re-log in on a brand site to signify that they “like” that page using the Facebook plug-in…but should we get to that point, Facebook will undoubtedly devise a simpler solution.

Expandable Social Ads

What They Are: These ads haven’t rolled out yet, so information is somewhat speculative (although confirmed by sources at Facebook), but they are intended to expand the reach and influence of advertising on Facebook by combining the custom content of standard engagement ads with the personal touch of Sponsored Stories (which only display that a friend has liked a page, without offering the opportunity to provide additional content). Think of them as a Sponsored Story, but now with feeling.

What It Means for Brands: This feature will further blur the lines between paid-for promotional messaging and social postings, as it looks and acts just like a regular post, with space to comment and discuss in-ad. These new ad units will display comments in addition to the likes offered by Sponsored Stories, offering the potential for instantaneous word-of-mouth endorsements from friends—or, if your brand or message is unpopular or untrue, the opportunity for consumers to blast you in real time, reinforcing the need for regular monitoring in social media. One potential drawback is that interaction with this ad will not appear in the new main news feed, negating the potential for the organic growth that would arise when a consumer’s friend network saw that they commented on your brand. But the inarguable marketing power of recommendations from friends will undoubtedly be worth that price.

People Talking About

What It Is: This new measurement tool works as a way to measure engagement beyond simple “likes,” providing a tally of all user-generated “stories”—basically any interaction with the content on your page that would register in the news ticker (comments, posts, liking comments or posts, answering questions, sharing and checking in), to measure overall engagement with the content.

What It Means for Brands: Not only is this a great tool to measure fan engagement with the content you publish (giving a more complete picture of how much people like, not merely “like,” your brand), it will also be a public-facing measurement that will appear under the number of “likes” on a page—meaning that a visitor can see at a glance whether there’s compelling enough content to keep them around. For brands, this will only make the publication of regular, engaging content more important—and more rewarding.

Friends of Fans

What It Is: This new insight (available only to administrators of pages) provides an overall number of friends your fans have. In other words, it’s a measurement of the potential reach of your content should all of your fans choose to share or interact with it.

What It Means for Brands: Although this number really only puts a value on your brand’s potential energy in this medium, it reinforces the importance of providing interesting, original, share-worthy content. Even if you have only 100 “SuperFans” who are so devoted to the content you provide that they share it with their networks, and they each average 250 friends, it’s safe to assume that a compelling piece of content you publish will quickly be shared with an opted-in network of 25,000 people, many of whom will be motivated to pass it further.

Weekly Total Reach

What It Is: This number (again, only available to administrators of pages) will tally your content’s actual messaging spread for the week—in other words, how many people and organizations used Facebook to spread the word about your page and its content.

What It Means for Brands: This will be an extremely useful measure of the success of your content’s spread (especially when compared against the overall “Friends of Fans” number as a ratio of shareability), but shouldn’t be seen as the be-all, end-all as it obviously doesn’t measure message spread outside of Facebook through word of mouth, email forwards, or other means.

And that’s the most important stuff…for now. Pending the outcome of various litigation and legislative involvement, these changes are expected to roll out over the next few weeks, and more changes and tweaks could soon follow. It’s certainly a lot to adapt to all at once, but the message from Facebook to brands can be summed up in three words: Create. Better. Content. “Those brands will have a better chance of winning over friends of fans either by advertising or by creating something viral,” explains Mashable’s Todd Wasserman. “It’s a cycle that has the potential to redefine the way we interact with brands. From now on, brands will be friends or friends of friends rather than spammers trying to bombard your consciousness.” The overall effect is inarguably to make Facebook a more user-friendly—and, crucially, brand-friendly—place.

Okay, it’s not exactly a party. But it’s not exactly a conference, either…This one-day event is meant to make branded content real for you. Luminaries from Ad Age, The Week, Electus, Bluefin, OMGPop and many more (see the speakers list) will converge to inspire you with bright revelations concerning the Future of Information and the Future of Entertainment.

It’s not just about meeting new media stars, however. The Summit is a daylong series of collaborative events (see the schedule) that break down the walls between “speaker” and “attendee,” between digital and actual audiences. It’s about moving beyond theorizing about best practices—with your help, we’re going to create real content in real time. And it’s about making sure that branded executions will work in the real world, with all those crossed-arms consumers, while carrying out brand objectives.

It’s going to be a lot of fun, and a damn good excuse to visit New York, if we do say so ourselves. If you can make it, we’d love to see you. There’s a discount available for you Post-Advertising fans (ssh!) that’ll save you $100 off the admission; use the code PABLOG when you sign up. If you sign up by Friday EOD you can also take advantage of the $100 off Early Bird Special (price goes up $100 next week). For more details, click here.

Hope to see you there!

At Story, we believe that content is king, so it’s hard for us to support this type of vague and generic advertising. TV shows are brands, and in a crowded media landscape brands must make themselves useful, fast, or get the hell out of the way. For each of these real posters, can you deduce the real plots from our fakes? If not, we submit that they’re probably too vague to be effective audience drivers. But feel free to challenge us in the comments section. Meanwhile, have fun!

Move to the next page to start the quiz!

]]> http://www.postadvertising.com/2011/09/vague-tv-ads/feed/ 5 http://www.postadvertising.com/2011/09/the-future-of-branded-entertainment/ http://www.postadvertising.com/2011/09/the-future-of-branded-entertainment/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:22:44 +0000 Jon Thomas http://www.postadvertising.com/?p=6161

This post originally appeared in our September issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

Blogging has been a fundamental shift in marketing, ushering in social media and the post-advertising age; it’s the cornerstone of inbound marketing. This regularly updated text-based content is the gasoline that fuels search engine optimization (SEO).

At Story we have a Facebook page with regularly updated content, we’ve written hundreds of blog posts here since 2008, we’ve published our own eBooks (with more to come), and we post daily updates to Twitter identities for both Story Worldwide and Post-Advertising. So take that into consideration when I tell you this:

Blogs and social media aren’t the be-all-end-all to content marketing.

That’s right. Not ALL content in the post-advertising age is limited to blogs, eBooks and social media. They’re important, of course, but opportunities are abound to embrace technology that’s not out of reach for brands.

As we move forward into the future of content marketing (and media in general), branded content must break the text-based chains that bind and embrace entertainment-based media such as an application or interactive game. This is especially true considering the rapid growth and adoption of handheld mobile devices. If a brand manages their marketing mix correctly, this “entertaining” content can create more awareness, evangelism, and engagement than informational content alone.

Some brands have already embraced entertainment opportunities. Have you seen these examples?

• Charmin (Procter & Gamble) sponsored the global bathroom directory Sit or Squat (web and mobile app).

 

• Outdoor clothing store REI created a Ski and Snow Report app that’s been rated over 12,000 times.

 

• Vaseline Men (client) create the Keep Your Grip Challenge, a multi-level interactive 3D online game where the player must juke, dive and spin past a series of defenders, all while keeping their grip on the football. The game drove over 150,000 level plays and an average playing time of over 2.5 minutes.

 

• Doritos recently had a contest where they asked their core audience to create ideas in order to develop a game. After thousands of submissions, an obstacle course type of game entitled Crash Course was created and offered on Xbox LIVE as a free download.

 

Now let’s play some armchair marketer – What if Polaroid created Instagram, the insanely popular photo app? What if Dole created Fruit Ninja? Or if Bolthouse Farms created Farmville?

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. The message is not to wonder why these opportunities weren’t seized, but to wonder what opportunities lie ahead. Are you looking for the next opportunity to engage your audience on a level deeper than ever before?

If you are, then consider the following questions before creating entertaining branded content: Why will this be fun? Why will this be useful? What incentive is there for someone to engage with this content? What emotional connection can be established?

We at Post-Advertising are working to help usher in the future of advertising. In that future lies information and entertainment, intertwined, helping brands engage their audience across numerous platforms. To that end, we’re publishing over a dozen eBooks as part of a Post-Advertising Survival Guide. You can find these on our Resources page. Our next issue, in line with this post, will be entitled Making Great Videogames.

What’s next for the future of entertainment? What branded entertainment opportunities have been missed? What are still available to seize?

The Post-Advertising Summit

In a Post-Advertising world, brands can only communicate with audiences by producing genuinely useful and entertaining content…the kind people actually want, and can share. This summit is a peek into how it’s done. A morning panel and work session focus on the FUTURE OF INFORMATION. The afternoon shifts focus to the FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT. The Summit will prove the promise of Post-Advertising by demonstrating the amazing content that can be created by smart people on behalf of sponsors, and the extent to which great stories will spread.

Don’t wait! Register now before the price goes up!

Speakers:

• Simon Dumenco – “The Media Guy,” Advertising Age
• Mark Schaefer – Author, Return on Influence
• Joe Pulizzi – Founder, Content Marketing Institute
• Shira Lazar – Host/Executive Producer, What’s Trending?
• Steven Kotok – President, The Week
• Laura Caraccioli-Davis – EVP of Advertising, Electus
• David-Michel Davies – Executive Director, Webby Awards & IADAS
• Michael Margolis – President, Get Storied
• Andrea Miller – Founder, YourTango.com
• Tom Thai – VP of Business Development, Bluefin Labs
• …and more to be announced soon!

LEARN MORE AT THE FULL SITE HERE

Who it’s for:

Marketing strategists, brand managers, designers, photographers, copywriters, and creative directors. Basically, anyone interested in turning the ad world upside down and developing a new method of engaging the audience.

What you’ll get out of it:

These workshops will reveal the power of storytelling and demonstrate how brands can create interesting, compelling media to effectively connect with their audiences. We’ll showcase those that are doing it best, plus, we’ll collaborate on a few mock campaigns ourselves to put this belief in action.

5 Reasons the Summit is Different:

1. You will be an engaged and integral part of the event
2. You will leave the Summit having CREATED two pieces of content
3. You will be part of conversations and workshops that shape the future of marketing
4. Our speakers are experts across varied disciplines, not just marketing or social media
5. It’s the only event where advertising and storytelling can be mentioned in the same sentence

The Basics:

• Date: March 29th, 2012
• Location: Cult Studios, NYC (27th between 6th and 7th)
• Time: 9am – 5pm, with a cocktail reception from 5-7pm (see full agenda here)
• Cost: $395 Early Bird; $495 Advance; $595 Day-of

Sponsorship:

Are you a pioneering brand leading the surge into the post-advertising age? If so, click here to learn more about becoming a sponsor of the Post-Advertising Summit.

However, it was time to take our badge off and pull out our sheet of gold stars (sorry, no monetary prize here) to reward those brands that are doing it right. These are the brands that have embraced Post-Advertising and focused their efforts on creating engaging content and igniting movements that spread.

Here are ten brands that stand beside us, ushering in the Post-Advertising age:

1. Google

When most companies become industry giants, they turn to advertising and marketing agencies that throw as many celebrities, explosions and beauty shots into the company’s advertisements as possible. While the budgets run laughably out of control, one juggernaut has remained divergently small. Indeed, Google’s television ads are the epitome of simple; yet still tell rich stories through their products. From a father’s love to the rise of Justin Bieber, each of Google’s ads showcase the many uses of their products in a succinct, beautiful, and indelible way. One in particular is simply entitled, “The Johnny Cash Project.” Watch below.

2. Harley-Davidson

Motorcycle culture isn’t just tearing through towns or running security at Rolling Stones concerts and Harley-Davidson wants you to know that. They’ve put together “The Ridebook” which features curated content on the lifestyle of motorcycle enthusiasts and has been “Liked” on Facebook more than 3 million times. From a barbershop in Brooklyn known to cater to Harley riders to a time-forgotten ghost town tailor made for a bike trip, all aspects of the culture are showcased in various chapters. Each section has a short video vignette, exquisite photography, and beautiful prose proving that Harley-Davidson gets that the actual motorcycle is only a small part of the story. Their YouTube page boasts longer-form, documentary style videos sure to resonate with passion-filled Harley Davidson enthusiasts.

3. HBO

HBO creates an immersive, otherworldly experience for the premiere of Boardwalk Empire’s new season. Beyond basic postering, HBO transformed a New York City subway car to accurately match one that might have existed during the 1920′s, prohibition-era setting of the show. HBO provided an incredible real-life way to convey and relate the story and setting of a period piece program to a modern audience, allowing that audience to actually feel like they’re part of the story.

Image via Laughing Squid

4. Dodge

There’s not a single person reading this post who didn’t play “hide and seek” as a kid. Well, Dodge’s latest campaign for their Journey Crossover vehicle has us doing just that. Their TV ads begin as innocuously as usual, showing the Journey travelling across scenic roads and bridges. But at the end of the ad is the big reveal —they hid three Journey Crossover vehicles somewhere in the United States. You find one of them, it’s yours to keep. Their branded YouTube page provides brief videos highlighting features of the Journey, as well as embedded clues to its whereabouts. (Apparently, one has already been found near Lake Tahoe.) The first TV spot is below.

5. AJ Bombers

What’s a small Milwaukee burger joint doing in our top ten? Well, because they belong there. AJ Bombers has set the bar for innovative uses of social media for a restaurant. Heck, they’ve set the bar for innovative uses of social media, period. Founder Joe Sorge has spearheaded their efforts which include being one of the first venues to organize a FourSquare flash mob, earning the Swarm Badge for all users involved (and not to mention, getting 150+ customers through their doors). They’ve been featured on Food Wars (and won) and boast over 16,000 followers on Twitter and 3,700+ fans on Facebook. Oh, and in case you didn’t hear me, they’re in Milwaukee. Not New York or San Francisco. Chris Brogan talks with Sorge and reveals why AJ Bombers is so successful in the video below.

6. Dominos

Dominos makes pizza, not the most unique product on the market. However, Dominos seems to be the only one truly taking advantage of the tools available to humanize the company and make buying pizza more enjoyable. Most recently they’ve created Domino’s pizza tracker, so you don’t have to wonder what’s going on behind the scenes, and the ability to leave reviews—some of which were broadcast in Times Square. They created a campaign about their new recipe after so many customers complained about how bad their pizza tasted. They even allowed their customers to become their photographers. This plan nearly backfired as they received a photo of a mangled pie with the cheese stuck to the box. Instead of burying the picture, they featured it in their TV spot, then made it right in the video below.

All of this occurred after two Dominos employees recorded themselves doing some not-so-savory things to the pizzas they were making. That could have meant the end for Dominos, but they apologized, remained transparent, and took a proactive approach to creating evangelists.

7. Pixar

Storytellers have a special place in our heart here at Post-Advertising. Pixar can be considered one of the best, creating engaging stories that fuel box office success and create brands that spread across a mind-boggling amount of platforms. Their stories resonate with audiences of all ages and make engaging with their brand across theme parks, computer games, books, and more an enjoyable experience. They’ve even written a book on business innovation.

8. Dos Equis

Certainly the “Most Interesting” brand in this list, Dos Equis captured audience’s attention by leveraging both the success of Old Spice’s “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign and the virality of Chuck Norris facts. Because we all know, when Chuck Norris dives into the ocean he doesn’t get wet. The ocean gets Chuck Norris. Their commercials followed the life of the Most Interesting Man in the World. Women adore him. Men want to be him. Both sides of his pillow are cool, and when in Rome, the Romans do as he does.

Their YouTube page not only includes their latest TV spot (with over a million views), but also the Interesting Man’s tips on speed dating and language. Dos Equis moved the conversation along at their Most Interesting Academy, where they offer esteemed courses that cover circumnavigating the globe, the art of the bluff, and the electric arts, among others. Their Stay Thirsty My Friends site also encourages users to upload videos of themselves giving a toast to whatever they’d like (with Dos Equis in hand, of course). One of the Most Interesting Man’s tips on speed dating is shown below.

9. Tom’s Shoes

Just the idea of creating a shoe company with a very visible non-profit subsidiary is quite a unique concept. Tom’s shoes, a for-profit shoe company, gives one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes purchased through their giving arm – Friends of Tom’s. The shoes themselves are not your normal cross-trainers, either. They were designed after traditional espadrilles, most commonly seen in Argentina (Tom went there during his stint on The Amazing Race).

Tom’s Shoes is very transparent, particularly in their release of the Giving Report, available as a downloadable PDF or interactively on Facebook, which answers all the questions about the giving side of Tom’s Shoes and ultimately takes the audience even deeper inside their cause.  They also organized One Day Without Shoes—a nationwide event encouraging supporters to go about their normal day barefoot to help raise awareness. They even motivated supporters to organize their own days without shoes. See the chill-inducing video below (note how important music is to a story).

10. Chobani

We seemingly talk a lot about Chobani, but with due reason. They don’t have a massive media spend like a few of the previous brands we mentioned (I have to admit, I didn’t even know Greek yogurt was an actual product until this year), but they embrace digital storytelling and harness the power of their superfans better than most with a product (Greek Yogurt) that, at first glance, would seem hard to be passionate about. This past spring, their first national TV campaign emerged, entitled Real Love, which leveraged the brand’s passionate customer-base with television spots, out-of-home placements, and social media, all featuring “real stories from real Chobani lovers.” Their Facebook page boasts over 254,000 fans, more than Dannon and Stonyfield combined). Pretty good for a yogurt company only 4 years old. They also have a great presence at live events which helps spice up their social media content. Take a look behind-the-scenes of their aforementioned TV campaign below.

Which brands do you think we’ve missed?

But what about the brands we aren’t familiar with? Is the Facebook environment, complete with hyper-targeted ads, a good place to find new customers? According to a recent study by DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research (as reported by Ad Age), 84% of a typical brand’s Facebook fans are existing customers. The implied meaning is that Facebook, while an incredibly effective customer retention and engagement tool, is much less of a customer acquisition tool than most brands have thought.

At first glance, this may be surprising to many brands. With Facebook’s massive audience—currently 750 million active users—brands are practically foaming at the mouth to use the tool to bring new customers aboard. However, it’s not the brand that defines the platform, it’s the users. Facebook is a place where users connect with those they already know, as opposed to a tool like Twitter or a service like Groupon where users are more likely to connect with new people or try new brands. Even Facebook’s worse-than-clunky search functionality makes it apparent that the platform is not the place to find new friends, but to reconnect with existing ones and foster relationships (or reignite old ones).

What does this mean for brands?

The relationship is not fundamentally different between brands and their Facebook fans—users choose to follow brands that they have a preexisting relationship with. The challenge is for brands to adjust their content marketing strategy to address the needs of the users that make up the majority of their fan base. Common customer acquisition tools like coupons, which can prompt a non-user to try a product, may be less relevant to an evangelist. On Facebook, the focus for brands should be on creating content that fans will find useful or entertaining—or, preferably, both. This type of content is more likely to be organically spread by the brand’s fans, naturally becoming a successful customer acquisition tool, even if it does nothing beyond spreading brand awareness.

Successful content creation on Facebook includes creating interactive games, contests, recipes, or simply tapping Facebook as a resource to ask your fans questions that could prompt valuable feedback or new ideas. If you’re looking to truly ramp up your Facebook content strategy, read our post outlining five ways to keep your Facebook content fresh.

Keep it all in context

We’re not saying that this study itself is flawed, but brands should also take this statistic with a grain of salt. This is a VERY broad stroke, and even in their findings they note that it’s for a “typical” brand. Facebook houses thousands upon thousands of brand pages, and no two brands are exactly the same. Some brands are historic and others are just starting out, and each will have different needs and audiences. So while this study delivers a point that is generally correct, make sure you’re taking into consideration where your brand (or product) is in its lifecycle. A younger brand is often more desperate to build up awareness than anything.

Also, understand the difference between a content strategy and a customer acquisition strategy. Targeted Facebook ads can be very useful and cost-effective for raising awareness, especially early in a brand’s lifecycle. And maybe your Facebook advertising efforts remain consistent for years. But what this study truly reveals is that your content strategy should always focus on creating unique, fresh, and consistent content that engages your existing audience. This is something we truly believe holds true for ALL brands (without breaking down content strategy minutia, like posting frequency).

That’s our take—what do you think this study reveals for brands? If you’re a Community Manager, will this change your content strategy?

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It all began as my wife Ellen and I tried to check in at Trout Point Lodge in the remote Nova Scotia woods. We had reserved lodging for four nights, but at the front desk we were told we would not be allowed to check in unless we signed a legalistic “Registration Card” that gave up our right to publish (or, perhaps, even talk about) our own opinions or accounts of the place.

As outlandish as it seems, Trout Point’s owners, all Americans from the New Orleans area, bluntly insist that:

“…all publications, writings, etc. via the Internet or in any other form whose subject is the result of a stay or other experience with [Trout Point Lodge] is the exclusive intellectual property of TPL and its owners…” and “prior written permission to publish, post etc. is required….”

In brief conversations with one owner, identified by his staff as Charles Leary, we were repeatedly told, “I have the right to control my own publicity.” This is certainly half true (owners should be able to control their own PR releases and advertising), but no merchant can control what his customers say about him or his enterprise. When we asked Leary if he didn’t have an obligation to warn his customers in advance about his novel policy, he replied sharply, “No. I don’t have to warn anybody.”

This last was delivered through the rolled-down window of a Range Rover he was driving as we were passing him on the inn’s dirt road. He was arriving; we were leaving, having declined to sign his agreement. As we pulled away, he called out, “Well, sue me then!” This was an odd invitation from someone in the hospitality business, but not so strange, perhaps, when you consider that Canadian authorities already are suing him and at least one other partner in Trout Point for allegedly defaulting on a $100,000-plus development loan for another venture. (All this and more is chronicled in the legal affairs blog Slabbed.com.)

Leary’s approach to guests leads one to wonder what he’s doing in the hospitality business. More important, knowing that he and Trout Point’s other owners apparently (claim to) own all rights to the glowing, mostly anonymous, 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor throws serious doubt on the authenticity of the praise being heaped on the place.

TripAdvisor did nothing to dispel my doubts about the usefulness or truthfulness of its service. A call to its CEO, Stephen Kaufer, went unreturned. Efforts by my wife to quote parts of Trout Point’s unusual Registration Card on TripAdvisor were rejected by the site because their policy is to publish only “original content” and, in their view, quoting from a hotel’s documents is not original content. It appears they are unfamiliar with the concept of news or verification. The review was finally posted with the quote from the hotel document removed. You can read it here (“Hire a Lawyer!).

THE WIDE WAR ON CUSTOMER COMMENTS

Trout Point’s policy, like the rest of the tactics in the commercial war against free speech, is being driven, clearly, by fear of the rising power of consumer sentiment–customers sharing their opinions through social media. Some of the merchants’ tactics are appalling; some merely clumsy and odd. But there’s no doubt that the endgame of this struggle will determine the ultimate usefulness of the web in helping us all make decisions about how we spend our money on everything from hotel rooms to restaurants to medical treatment.

Trust is the necessary basis of an economy, as the writers of the Magna Carta understood some 2,000 years ago and as economists understand today. Without trust between buyer and seller, nothing gets bought or sold. The whole body of commercial law is about establishing and maintaining trust. Honest commenting on the web—consumers truthfully sharing their experiences—is a powerful extension of trust-building. So if the least honest or most manipulative businesses win this war, it will hurt consumers, honest businesses and the entire public marketplace, of course.

Bribery, bullying, forgery and lying have been the standard weapons in the commercial war to contain or counteract consumers’ online comments. Recent stories in London’s Daily Mail (“TripAdvisor bribes: Hotel owners offer free rooms in return for glowing reviews”), the travel tech blog tnooz (“TripAdvisor accuses TV star and hotel owner of intimidating hotel guests”), The New York Times (“In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5″), the Techdirt blog (“Woman Kicked Out Of A Restaurant For Complaining About Bartender On Twitter”), our blog (“Can Customer Reviews Be Trusted?”) and other media outlets all attest to the ongoing warfare against authentic, unfettered consumer opinion.

A couple years ago, Nielsen did a famous, influential piece of global research on which forms of “advertising” had the biggest influence on purchase behavior. Their findings stated: “Recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising….”

Nielsen’s findings contributed significantly to the current notion that universal web access and the ability of ordinary people to share their views worldwide have altered the old power structures, giving might to the ruled instead of their rulers, giving commercial power to the buyers instead of the sellers.

This consumer revolution–powered by the democratization of global publishing–has gotten praise from almost everyone who isn’t actually trying to rule a nation autocratically. Now, however, the counterrevolution appears to be starting and the most dedicated counterrevolutionaries turn out to be not just political dictators, but businesses, small and large. This is serious stuff because the power of consumer comments, as Nielsen says, is the trust they command. So what happens once the trustworthiness of all online consumer comments is under attack as more merchants pay for good reviews, plant phony reviews, threaten customers who write bad reviews or bully customers into relinquishing their free speech rights?

Questions of authenticity now hover over all commercial comments on the web, especially those on sites operated solely to aggregate and profit from consumer comments–like TripAdvisor and Yelp–but also, more broadly, all the ecommerce sites that use customer reviews to push sales, including Amazon, B&N, IMDB, NetFlix, RottenTomatoes, Angie’s List and so on and on and on.

FROM POLITICAL ASSAULTS TO COMMERCIAL ONES

Not so long ago, attempts to control speech on the Internet were considered the exclusive province of human-rights-hating dictators: the “Great Firewall of China”; Hosni Mubarak’s efforts to shut down the Internet in Egypt; Tehran’s clumsy efforts to block social media; and so on.

Recently, notorious rights violators like Hu Jintao and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been joined in their war against free online speech by lots of seemingly unlikely allies. The UK’s David Cameron is a recent convert to their cause, threatening to shut down social media in Britain in the wake of widespread rioting there. San Franciso’s rapid transit authority, BART, also has jumped aboard by shutting down customers’ cellphone service in its underground stations in an effort to stop protesters from using mobile media to organize.

So the rise of the merchant-led attack on free speech represents a newer front in a long-running war.

Cara Zwibel is the lawyer who directs the Fundamental Freedoms Program of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). While she’s not sure about the enforceability of the Trout Point Lodge agreement, she says, “What’s most concerning to me and, generally, to our organization is less the enforceability of it and more the chilling effect it would have.”

To understand how outrageous Trout Point’s demands are, Zwibel points out, it’s useful to think of what this agreement might have said in the pre-Internet era. “Would you have ever been able to get people to sign a contract that said, ‘You can’t tell anyone about your stay here and you can’t show anyone the pictures you took.’?” she asks. “It’s preposterous.”

Looking at the topic more broadly, Zwibel comments, “This is a bit of an interesting situation because it is a private attempt to censor. We are usually concerned about government actions. But there are just as many opportunities for the private sector to curb expression.” In more normal cases, she adds, corporations quash free speech by threatening or filing libel suits. But no matter the tactics used, “The private censorship issue is a live one,” she says.

WHAT’S TO BE DONE ABOUT IT?

All this begs the question: What can we do to make the world safer for truthful, authentic comments? Unhappily, there’s no simple answer.

Zwibel suggests we start in the schools, with a strong curriculum around media literacy that emphasizes using the Internet. She also suggests, “There should be some requirement for sites to post in clear terms their rules and regulations.” But like me and most civil libertarians, she’s uneasy about censoring phony speech. “I do think there are problems with trying to regulate commercial or inauthentic free speech. I’d be nervous about who’s making the determination of what’s authentic and what’s inauthentic.”

The US Federal Trade Commission has famously issued rules trying to address the need for disclosure of any and all payments made to influence online comments, social media endorsements and recommendations. Trouble is, as virtually everyone has pointed out, the FTC’s rules are virtually impossible to enforce.

In the end, policing the Internet is a community responsibility. Now is the time for the Community Truth Squad of the Crowd Police–the informal conspiracy to enforce honesty on the web.

Tools for the Crowd Police may be coming: As reported a month ago on Eater.com, a national foody site, Cornell researchers have put together a piece of software they say is 90% effective at spotting phony reviews. That’s certainly a head start, if it can be made easy to use by the average human being.

But most of what the Crowd Police need to do is apply the same shoe-leather persistence as the real police. I just bought the URL TruthInComments.com. Now, who can come up with a solid plan to make it an effective site for posting the truth about lies online? We’ll be handing out badges to all charter Crowd Cops. Join us.

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UPDATE – 9/2/11:

Since this post initially went up, I have gotten numerous emails, ranging from apologetic to threatening, from Charles Leary. He alleges bad behavior on my part. He also says the long-running lawsuit filed against Trout Point and him by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) has been settled. In addition, he says the man I talked to who was identified by his staff as Charles Leary was not, in fact, Charles Leary. But he will not produce the document showing the lawsuit was settled and he will not identify the man he claims I spoke to. Finally, he reaffirms his belief in his policy of attempting to own all his guests’ thoughts, observations and opinions about Trout Point.

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