There’s a great summary of the Motrin social media mishap titled “Crashing Motrin-gate: a Social Media Case Study” on AdAge. It does an excellent job of mapping out the starting point for the chatter and then the tipping point at which it explodes on twitter.

I have to questions whether I think this was worth pulling down for the brand though. I’d be interested to see what percentage of the 300 blog posts (301 counting this one) are from marketing or social media blogs/sites. I think this is a hot subject right now in marketing, but was it really that big when you look at it’s impact on pop culture. Only a couple of hundred thousand people viewed this ad on YouTube. I feel like this might be media going nuts again and making a big deal out of a small fire.

Maybe there was a more intelligent way to respond to the community then issuing a very corporate apology, pulling your site down, and pulling this commercial. Based on some very interesting conversations I’ve been having with our own corporate communications department I’ve been thinking about the best ways for businesses/brands to respond to feedback in the social media space.

This could have been used to engage all of the naysayers into a bigger conversation and in the long term turn them into vocal brand advocates. They should personally message each of the people that commented on Twitter and ask them to get involved on their next ad (in terms of early feedback). Imagine the groundswell of buzz they’d be able to create…

This just absolutely rocked my world. Enjoy for some Friday Fun!

* The TV ad was shot using 200 Toshiba Gigashot Cameras: the highest number of moving image cameras ever used in a film sequence
* This particular technique, viewing looping action in 360 degrees, has never been done before
*The time spent processing footage from 200 cameras was over four weeks - 24 hours a day seven days a week!
* In terms of data, this is one of the biggest jobs a post-production house has ever taken on - 20TB of data
* New offline and online editing software had to be specifically built for the job
* Soundtrack is provided by Crystal Castles
* Integrated campaign to promote Toshiba’s new range of upscaling products - TV, DVD and laptops - that convert standard definition TV and DVD images to near high-definition quality  [Cinematical]

I started tinkering with Google Lively today. If you’re not familiar with Lively (www.lively.com) it’s Google virtual world software that currently runs on Windows.

Lively allows you to create your own virtual worlds, customize avatars, and then embed them in web pages. What’s so interesting about this concept is that you could effectively use these virtual worlds (or glorified chat rooms depending on how you look at them) to interconnect online communities that span multiple websites.

I have embedded a room below for you to tinker with that has quite a few people in it so it should be easy to test out the user experience. I found it to be a bit clunky, but I also appreciate the fact that it’s running in a browser and is a Gen 1 product.

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When I look at some of the most successful marketing campaigns I have been fortunate enough to be involved with I have started to realize that, in most cases, they fit into two categories. One category is projects that have a very high pass-along factor and the second is projects that have a very high pass-along factor and are very press friendly. These press friendly ideas, like Trevor The Mentos Intern or Guinness Hands for example, received exponentially more traffic because of their original content that truly was unlike almost anything on the web at the time of their release. When bloggers received links from us or tips from friends it was easy for them to find a reason to write about it in the hopes that they’d publish before anyone else or felt a sincere need to tell their friends.

These ideas aren’t always the most sane (yet again, reference Trevor The Mentos Intern) and in some cases they’re not particularly politically correct. The fashion company Diesel seems to have a really good grasp of how to make these press friendly viral campaigns. They did it very successfully last year when they had two models “kidnap” a sales person and the company’s primary website while interacting with visitors via a live web cam.

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP.

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PART IV OF THE “TREND WATCHING TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE EDGE IN MARKETING” SERIES:

Use with skill and caution....

In my previous post I talked about the concept of micro-celebrities. Where are some of these micro-celebrities and how do we use them help us launch products.

Look to Personal Blogging, Fanfiction Writing, Podcasting, Video Blogging, and even the profile pages of your friends on social networking sites. (The other option is to create your own micro-celebrities like Trevor the Mentos Intern, but we’ll get to that in a second.)

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Microsoft’s new ads begin with company employee Sean Siller — who looks a whole lot like John Hodgman, the actor who plays the PC in Apple’s ads — saying “I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype”,  directly targeting Apple. It’s an interesting strategy attacking directly Apple’s implication that Mac is cool and PC’s are boring…

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There’s a fine line between crazy and genius and CPB’s new Microsoft has drawn some attention and criticism at least in the advertising community. The common consensus is that it was a disaster, but is there more to it? As nicely said by nowpublic:

The widespread consensus: Microsoft + Jerry + Bill = FAIL.
The result: Gates + Seinfeld = CANCELLED.
The Microsoft version: it was all part of the plan.  Read More »

PART III OF THE “TREND WATCHING TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE EDGE IN MARKETING” SERIES:

Everyone talk’s about using “key influencers”. We hear these terms used in pitches for new campaigns all the time.

 It’s easy to think of businesses, celebrities, or high profile websites as “key influencers” or places “key influencers” frequent respectively, but today’s new media key influencers are far more powerful then any of their predecessors.

They have a platform – a large platform. They can create content hourly or daily if they like. They’re not like writers who created editorial content for magazines – they’re not beholden to anyone. They blog, vlog, twitter, or live broadcast their thoughts in the form of random thoughts, daily news, or even skits.

 More importantly, due to the strength of their personalities and frequently lack of corporate association, these new media key influencers are able to build long-term trusting relationships with consumers.

We need to leverage these key influencers with product placement or subtle endorsements. Notice I said subtle. These are inexpensive ways to get your brand out there. 

SMOSH is a great example. As of April 2008, they have over 337,000 subscribers on YouTube, making them the most subscribed “producers” on YouTube. Most of their videos have over 2 to 3 million views. Smosh’s most famous video, a tribue to the Pokemon Theme had more then 24,000,000 views on YouTube.

The reality is very few media buying companies are recommending these solutions to their clients. I haven’t decided if I think it’s because it’s their not social media friendly or if they’re just lazy and don’t want to look out of their typical comfort zone. Whatever the reason - there’s an opportunity for marketers here.

PART II OF THE “TREND WATCHING TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE EDGE IN MARKETING” SERIES:

True loyalty – and the word of mouth buzz that comes with it – evolves naturally from the great experiences you have with a company over time.

Notably great experiences are punctuated by a moment of “wow”. Sometimes it’s when the product or service delights,  or maybe when it anticipates the needs of a particular niche or a large group of people, or my personal favorite, for no legitimate business reason, when it pleasantly surprises a person.

Many of you have initiatives using all of or most of these methods, and so do your competitors. You’re creating great ads hoping that consumers will connect with you. These ads are in banners, on search results, on branded micro-sites, in company blogs, and perhaps you have even created a page in Facebook or MySpace. These are all good things, but ultimately we’re still talking about the strategies that have effectively worked in advertising for the last 100 years with just more mediums in play.

Reaching Your Audience

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The following post is Part 1 in a multi series post that will occur each day for the next two weeks. It’s based on my favorite speaking engagement of this year that I presented to the marketing leadership team at GE. If you haven’t subscribed yet this might be a good reason.

I'll be ranting about the following for the next two weeks....

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