1. Advertising In Social Gaming

    June 4, 2011 by Jarod Green

    In the late 1800′s, Jules Verne was approached by shipping operators to include references of their companies in his 1874 classic Around the World In Eighty Days. With these simple requests the age of product placement was born, and is a tool that still permeates our cinema, television, sporting and radio experiences.

    137 years later, the new battlefield for brands is in the social media spaces, and no area is more ready to pop than social gaming.

    In a report from Nielson analysing online habits of Americans between July 2009 and June 2010, it was shown that social gaming had surpassed personal email as the second most popular activity on the web (over 56 million Americans play online social games).

    This (no doubt) will come as a shock to a lot of brands and businesses that still think the world of gaming is restricted to a youth/teen market. The ubiquitous assimilation of smartphones and social networking has presented society with a way to connect beyond the realm of status updates and political-career-ending party photos.

    Our leisure time is now under assault from advertisers keen to find new markets and engage consumers in unique and interesting ways.

    I think it’s important to note here that brands must be willing to bend their brand image to suit the narrative of the social games they seek to interact with. Much like putting a video on YouTube and expecting it to go “viral” is a fallacy, expecting to stick your brand name in any social game will also miss the mark. Being creative in integration is just as important as being integrated when it comes to social gaming.

    Personal case study: I always remember playing GoldenEye 64 in the late 1990′s, and one of the tasks for me (AKA James Bond) was to recover a top secret video recording from a Russian bunker. When I discovered that recording was actually a VHS of the GoldenEye movie (complete with cover art) I literally got a little excited. I can only thank the lord in-app purchasing wasn’t available in those days or I would have spent a lot of money.

    So how can we integrate? How can brands get on board this social gaming wagon?

    Currently the social gaming experience is dominated by brands and businesses offering retail goods, subscription services, surveys and branded videos. Engaging with these businesses online usually results in some form of virtual credit or currency.

    Personally I like the idea of branded goods within the game as an easy first-step for brands. I find it has wider scope for creativity than the Hit Wall and less costly than building your own branded game. Have a look around the online space at some of the more popular games out there, and think about what virtual rewards or goods you might be able to offer players (read: “your consumers”).

    As always, think outside the box and keep it creative/radical. We play games to escape reality, so don’t try and drag what you do in other media campaigns back through the digital door unchanged and expect results.

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  2. The False Security of Digital Communication

    June 3, 2011 by Jarod Green

    We humans are a social creature. It is our ability to network, coordinate, and share our experiences that allows us to develop, progress and ultimately improve the ways in which we do things here on this lonely planet in the corner of the Milky Way.

    The cultural embracing (read “devouring”) of technology (especially mobile/internet technologies) over the last few decades has flashed a lot of binary chatter across our eyes in the form of blogs, podcasts, status updates and tweets. Indeed, I often find it hard to not receive an email or notification every five seconds about what someone I remotely know is doing or thinking or reading or listening to or…

    You know the feeling.

    We can only assume this increase in visible babble is gold to the inboxs of big business keen to hear how their brands are being perceived and discussed by consumers.

    What’s more, the immediacy of the internet and social networking suggests corporations and commercial entities can react faster than ever before in the history of advertising to customer reaction and suggestion.

    Until recently, I took this as a simple logical truth. This is why I was surprised to read last month that a social media survey conducted on behalf of PRWeek and MS&L (interestingly for PRWeek and CA Walker) found that

    “marketers don’t make changes to their products based on customer feedback, despite monitoring feedback being one of the most common business uses of social media in the first place”

    The survey continues to state that an amazing 70% of marketers don’t make changes to a product or marketing effort based on feedback from consumers on social media sites. This shows a high level of skepticism in the corporate world towards the weight of review social media can provide. Whether this is the result of limited implementation/strategy timeframe, lack of experience with social media, professional hesitation, the global nature of social media (and the need to impliment a global campaign) or a fundamental conviction there is no ROI with social media is hard to say.

    Let’s take a look at why the 271 interviewed CMO’s and MD’s use social media:

    1. Managing and monitoring customer feedback

    2. Understanding the consumer and competitive landscape

    3. Reaching key influencers

    “Customer feedback should be the front lines of product development,” says Jim Tsokanos, MS&L’s president, North America.

    “Marketers need to act on information culled from social sites and are missing out on a key opportunity to improve and shape their products and programs based on what their consumers need and want.”

    Tsokanos also stated that “if brands do not have a social media presence, consumers will create one for them.” I found this very interesting and possibly a professional reasoning as to why marketers might shy away from including social media budget in their campaigns. If the fans are going to do it anyways, with a “roots up” element to it that no amount of tricky flash or online giveaway can compete with, then why spend thousands on a social media element to a brand campaign?

    Obviously there are incentives in consumer information and additional behavioural monitoring that can be analysed when your fanbase passed through your own servers, but can 39% of senior marketing executives saying none of their current marketing budget is dedicated to social media programs truly believe the wiki culture of the internet will do their job for them?

    Hopefully they learn soon it’s not about what people are saying about your brand, but rather are brands listening? That is the new competitive advantage.

     

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  3. 3D Crossroad

    by Jarod Green

    I read an interesting article in US magazine Variety today about the current (and future) state of 3D cinema in the eyes of DreamWorks CEO Jeff Katzenberg.

    It comes as a warning to Hollywood deafened and dazzled by the sound of cash registers for anything with “3D” slapped to the title, and Katzenberg makes little disguise of his disappointment at some recent 3D efforts (namely the widely panned Clash of the Titans).

    From the article:

    “I think we are at a genuine crossroads. Today, 3D in theaters offers probably the greatest innovation and opportunity for movie makers, studios, exhibitors and, most importantly, the consumers, of anything that’s come along in several decades.

    “I think people have really misunderstood what my anxieties have been about in these last few weeks. We had the largest 3D release platform for “Dragons” than any movie today. It’s not been about losing 3D screens for “Dragons.”

    “So the issue of “Clash of the Titans” is actually not about theater (capacity) and theater access, it is about (what) that movie represents — a different experience. And in my opinion, one that, if replicated, and becomes the standard, is the end of 3D.

    “We’ve seen the highest end of (3D) in “Avatar” and you have now witnessed the lowest end of it (in “Titans”). You cannot do anything that is of a lower grade and a lower quality than what has just been done on “Clash of the Titans.” It literally is “OK, congratulations! You just snookered the movie audience.”

    “The act of doing it was disingenuous. We may get away with it a few times but in the long run, (moviegoers) will wake up. And the day they wake up is the day they walk away from us and we blew it.”

    He raises a valid point. Like hybrid cars or Twenty20 cricket, 3D cinema is the new flashy reinvention of a century-old industry, and nobody knows if it’s here to stay or a passing fad. Right now 3D is in its formative years, and if it is to become accepted as a staple story-telling tool (as sync sound did in the early 1900′s and colour film in the 1950′s) then producers and the wider industry have an obligation to ensure 3D is used to enhance viewer experience and not revenue raise. We need to be clever and respectful with how we use the technology and not lose sight of the fact that, glasses or not, our job is simply to tell good stories in the most engaging way possible.

    The full article with Katzenberg can be found on the Variety website here.

     

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  4. Why We Are Brand Loyal

    by Jarod Green

    I read an interesting article at YouAreNotSoSmart.com last month and have been meaning to share it’s insights for a few weeks now. It attempts to dissect the behaviour of online communities, forums and blogs to become so heated and aggressive in their opinions in digital conversation. We see lines being drawn constantly between Brand Lovers (“fanboys”) and Brand Haters (“hostages”) on the digital battlefield of web forums, comments pages and status updates.

    David McRaney offers an interesting insight into the psychological aspect of fanboyism:

    The Misconception: You prefer the things you own over the things you don’t because you made rational choices when you bought them.

    The Truth: You prefer the things you own because you rationalise your past choices to protect your sense of self.

    I find it an interesting argument for why people become so anonymously aggressive in the world of digital debate. To imply we respond (in any way) to a comment about a brand to defend our most private sense of self is powerfully intriguing…

    It’s the reason why Apple would rather show us the people who use their computers (I’m a Mac!) rather than the (rational/empirical) features of their computers. It’s the same with McDonald’s, who not longer tell you what’s on their burgers, but rather show the people that find solitude and satisfaction by consuming their burgers. It doesn’t matter if they’re healthier or cheaper or faster, it’s the lifestyle and image they’re trying to push (even if it is more artificial than their flavourings).

    At the end of the day, when making decisions, it’s just easier to go with emotions than rational thought. There’s too much to consider if we try and rationalise everything. Emotions are far more efficient at convincing us we’ve done the right thing, made the right choice, and bought the right product. “Gut instinct”, that most primitive of concepts and enemy of the rationalist, still serves society with more impression that any of us would admit to.

    Anything you own by choice, like it or not, you are consciously a slave to defend. Brands are the colours that signify which army you aline with in this fertile digital war of words. By protecting brands we are protecting ourselves… Loyalty doesn’t get much better than that!

    Read the full article HERE.

     

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  5. The Art of Social Media Competitions

    by Jarod Green

    So you want to tether your brand to the social media landscape. You want to engage the millions of people that access and interact through social media every hour with your message.You want the metrics to reflect an infiltrating, low-cost campaign.

    But what to do?

    The art of social media competitions posses the same headaches for brands and businesses as it did in the pre-digital age. The advent of consumer technologies means film competitions are no longer limited to art school graduates and offspring of “old money” (heck, I can shoot, edit and post HD video on my mobile phone these days). Digital photography is now an everyday activity whilst every second primary school student is a radio broadcaster (read: “podcaster”) or newspaper columnist (read: “blogger”).

    So… What to do?

    It all starts with knowing your marketing goals. Any competition needs a clear and measurable marketing objective to guide the social media strategy underneath it. These goals need not be overly specific (raising awareness, driving traffic to company social media sites, collecting customer interest and buying habits, building new customer relationships) but they do need to set the end game objective and justify using a competition as the driving force to achieve it.

    From here you can outline your competition objective, which is the most important (and most creatively fun) part. What is the competition? What do people have to do to be a part of it? And what are they rewarded with for engaging?

    There are some classic competition structures that are tried and true:

    1. Make a new commercial for our brand.

    2. Make a short film about your experiences with our brand.

    3. Make a print campaign based on our brand.

    4. Write your favourite experience in 50 words.

    5. Invent something new for us and be rewarded.

    The trick in all these approaches is treading the line between creative freedom and creative challenge. The technical bar must be low enough so that everyone can jump over it, but in the interest of not attracting rubbish you need a level of quality assurance that attracts talented and creative people. It’s why Tropfest charges $50 for each entry… You need to be invested in your idea!

    Once you have a clear understanding (or brief) for your public netizens, it’s time to sppread the word and bring in the crowd. Cross-platform promotion is the best way to go in my opinion as no single platform on the web or in the media can give you the reach achievable from a well-thought social media strategy. Connecting through Facebook and Twitter is great, but you need to drive interest and get people engaging in your competition by seeding and searching for the communities that are most likely to fit your original marketing objective. Couple this to other email, print, mass media and in-store promotional tools to ensure your distribution and awareness is maximised.

    If you’re going to host the page yourself, ensure the site is easy to share. Embed tools like Facebook Connect, RSS, Twitter feeds, etc, to make it as easy as possible for a community to grow. These channels of communication are also great for informing your entrants where to go, what to do, how much time is left, and other updates/promotions throughout the contest.

    It’s also crucial to give the competition a timeframe and stick to it. Extensions to the deadline are usually an indicator of poor integration with social networks or your target market, and also is annoying/offensive to those loyal fans that played by the rules.

    Stick to your competition dates, and keep engaging your community even whilst judging. Keep the suspense and give participants a reason to keep spreading your brand. Ensure you announce winners clearly and boldly. Make a song and dance about them to ensure a sense of reward. Everyone loves grabbing a few minutes of fame, so ensure winner announcements are also easily passed onto grandparents and loved ones.

    Always, ALWAYS, offer the opportunity to sign up to a newsletter. Databases are the future!

    Finally, the all-important measuring and evaluation. Consult your metrics and compare them to your objectives from the start. Check the tangibles like sales, web-traffic, Facebook likes, twitter followers, subscriptions, blog mentions, etc and assess what could be done better, lessons learned and any other observations for next time.

    Like anything drawing on human interaction, there is an art-form to doing it right and getting ideal results. Starting with a strong and clear marketing objective should guide your actions all the way through. Be open and engaging with your community and you can’t go wrong.

     

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  6. Licensing Songs For YouTube

    by Jarod Green

    It’s been the curse of every guerrilla filmmaker with ambitions of social stardom on YouTube – making a kick-ass video only to have the soundtrack ripped from its infant heart by the all-hearing cyber watchdog that monitors the site for copyright infringement. What’s left is a modern throwback to silent movies and a certainty viewership won’t peak beyond your mum and immediate friends.

    For a while there’s been talk of building a financial model into YouTube that allows filmmakers access to popular music whilst also remunerating artist for their performances and recordings. It made some bold steps with the introduction of “Click-To-Buy” last year that directs viewers to iTunes or Amazon instead of enforcing strict censorship of the sound. It also had a major victory last week against Viacom which paves the way for a more liberal application of copyright law.

    With this in mind there’s great news coming out of Portland that a company called Friendly Music will begin allowing filmmakers the opportunity to buy music rights for as little as $3 for movies on YouTube. The license is for non-commercial use, but I think it’s an amazing step forward in removing the ambiguity that filmmakers face between “fair use” and “criminal” when it comes to online distribution.

    Hopefully the format will take off and provide an additional revenue stream for artists whilst helping to lift the quality of the content posted to YouTube.

    Well, in theory anyway. (I’m sure there’s still many more “Funny Cat Playing Piano” videos to come).

    Check out Friendly Music HERE.

     

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  7. One Giant Leap For Crowd Sourcing

    by Jarod Green

    The good people down at YouTube are on the road of pioneering social media once again, this time with a vision to make a complete UGC feature film.

    The company has pulled in the big guns of Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald to turn the humble day of July 24th into the most visually documented day in the history of humanity. The project, titled Life In The Day, will premiere at Sundance next year and stream simultaneously on YouTube.

    “I hope it will be something that will open people’s eyes to the possibilities of user-generated film,” Macdonald said.

    “Of course, it’s a risk. It could be that I won’t get anything interesting back. But I don’t think that will be the case. I’m sure there will be some real gems, some real magic, which is what I’m looking for.”

    I think this is an interesting moment in the evolution of social media as the professional pantheon of Hollywood opens its doors to the idea that quality content can come from the untrained, unskilled everyday person. It’s certainly a form of affirmation that the barriers to entry for filmmakers are nearly all but gone. To think you can get a credit on a Sundance-premiering Kevin MacDonald film for simply filming your morning breakfast is a concept inconceivable only five years ago.

    The power of the social marketplace is starting to rumble the foundations of the big media players, and it’s wonderful to see some people embracing the movement rather than fighting it in courtrooms.

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  8. Social Media – A Definition

    by Jarod Green

    One of the questions I get asked constantly when meeting with clients for the first time is for a concise definition of what exactly “social media” is, especially in the context of a marketing tool. Most people I bounce this question off at conferences or workshops fumble around between the academic “democritisation of information” and the schoolyard “Twitter and shit”.

    Personally, it’s a question I’m still looking for answers on.

    One of the better answers I’ve heard comes from a keynote given earlier this year by Shiv Singh, VP of Razorfish. He took self-described “social ecologist” Peter Drucker’s classic business definition of “The purpose of a business is to create customers” and gave it a social media slant:

    The purpose of a business is to create customers who create customers.

    I really like the simple and effective imagery this quote gives to the purpose of social media from a brand or business standpoint. Although possibly over-simplistic from a business theory angle, the sentiment is right.

    Thinking about it further, and in my deep desire to achieve a perfect definition on this, I think I’ve stumbled upon a new definition for business in the Information/Attention Age:

    The purpose of a business is to create a community.

    Brands can no longer look to satisfy or please the individual, and can no longer present themselves as a single, unified voice. Connecting with customers today involves being transparent and open to the people you’re selling to and letting the consumer dictate the brand image.

    To the old folk entrenched in the Old Media world it’s a scary proposition, where brands were the core to which communities flocked. The future is the inverse, where brands must come to communities and earn their trust, respect, loyalty and advocacy through unique and engaging concepts.

    In summary – it’s an exciting time to be a consumer.

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  9. Salad With Ren & Stimpy

    by Anthony MacFarlane

    I achieved a boyish brush with fame today when I was able to visit Jim Ballantine at his Sydney-based Flying Bark Studios.

    For those of you wondering what I’m talking about, this is the guy who made Ren and Stimpy a reality and changed the course of my tweenage years (not to mention my definition of what “funny” is).

    As we sat over salads and sparkling water I was interested to hear Jim speak of the early days of Ren and Stimpy, when the network only had six episodes. These episodes would be repeated on rotation for 18 months. Each week, more and more people began watching the show and the network finally twigged that more content was needed.

    This was back in the early 90′s, which although is nearly 20 years ago now is essentially an analogue version of how YouTube success can be created. I saw many similarities between this and the Beached Az content I’ve been involved in over at The Handsomity Institute.

    Jim was quick to point out the cruel impact of the digital social world on this method of building an audience; “I don’t think this model would work now,” Jim says.

    Nonetheless I am always captivated when my eyes are opened up to moments that show me online content isn’t the new and scary territory many paint it out to be. It is merely an extension of what we’ve been doing since not only 20 years ago, but since the birth of communication itself… Telling stories.

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  10. Weather Stations Vs Swarm Intelligence

    by Jarod Green

    It happens every weekend for me. I wake up, check the weather on my phone, dress appropriately, then find myself sweating or freezing to death outside when the real weather is often the complete opposite of the cute icons on my online weather service.

    It always perplexes me how we can spend billions of dollars on satellites, weather stations, pressure sensors, tide monitors and weather balloons only to be so completely off the mark day-in, day-out.

    Last weekend I was at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach. The weather had been sunny, but was about to storm. I checked my phone to get some indication of how much sunshine I had left, but neither Yahoo, Weatherzone or the official government Bureau of Meterology had any reference to a storm occurring…

    A panicked thought went through me: Could the internet be wrong?

    Suddenly I had a thought:

    If we got everyone on the beach to guess the temperature, and guess what the weather would do based on their own experiences, would we get a more truthful result than empirical scientific apparatus and algorithms?

    Tie this in with a service that is geo-location specific, maybe current photos of the skyline, opinions and polls, and perhaps we use our collective, non-specialist predictions to provide a better weather service to humanity?

    It would be both a beautiful experiment and a wonderful idea.

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