Here are some of the more successful social media campaigns and cutting-edge ideas that you should know about, if you haven’t already seen them.

Will it Blend? Making a YouTube video of an iPhone in a blender cost a few hundred bucks but at last count the video has received over 7.6 million views.  The video managed to piggy-back off other web traffic because ‘iPhone’ was a popular search term. Actually blending an iPhone was intriguing and entertaining. More importantly, the video showed that the product actually worked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI

Tourism Queensland’s Island Reef job was heavily rooted in social media.  The concept was genius; give away a job that seemed too good to be true on an island in Australia with a great pay check during a recession.  Contestants had to create a video to enter. The community that emerged could vote on the video. This was the first global initiative by an australian State DMO.  It cost $1.7 million and returned an estimated $400 million in media value and $8.6 million in web traffic.  Already a good deal but it gets better.  Now the winner writes a blog every day – you can see it here: http://www.islandreefjob.com/

The Photo-crashing Squirrel.  Banff’s DMO seized on an unlikely opportunity when a tourist took a self-timer photo that a squirrel popped into after it was drawn to the noise of the camera. The photo captured a unique experience that every tourist would like.  Banff wrote and distributed a press release at very little cost.  Combine that with some creative use of social media and you have very cost-effective attention from mainstream media channels across the world: http://www.canada.com/technology/Banff+squirrel+photo+gets+huge+attention/1889605/story.html

JK Wedding Intro. This is a YouTube video that just happened to take off and is now being used to solicit donations for violence prevention.  This one was catchy and the crowd loved it, this takes trial and error.  Over 36 million views and an interview on Today!  Not bad for a wedding video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0  Better still, I like the genius behind a response that has received over 4.5 million views.  Find a video that’s going viral and post a creative response. Keep it relevant too, divorce is related to marriage.  What better way to promote a video production company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbr2ao86ww0&feature=related

Skittles.com.  Visiting the rainbow online will make you think twice about your presence and whether it’s worth maintaining your own URL.  Why would you if you can do everything where there’s a built-in audience?  Here’s a great insight into the future of the online presence of tourism destinations: http://www.wilhelmus.ca/2009/10/the-end-of-the-dmocvb-website-europe-says-yes.html.

Ikea ran a very creative campaign that I wrote about previously: http://rodneypayne.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/14/

Lastly, here’s an excellent example of how to use Twitter properly.  Connect with your true customers (not just anyone who will listen) and then give them information that they actually want to hear from you.  If you’re a Korean BBQ Kart in Los Angeles, you’d use Twitter to tell your passionate customers (in realtime) where you’re going to be located today: http://kogibbq.com/

For every success there are many more attempts that didn’t go viral but it’s cost-effective to try.  The message from these examples is to stay relevant, choose the right social media tool and keep the information relevant. Find out what your competitive advantage is and exploit it.

Last Tuesday was my final Grassroots Communications class for the fall semester. Over the previous fourteen weeks, we discussed many aspects of effective grassroots communications and word-of-mouth marketing. Instead of trying to repeat them all, I shared the following list of five key principles to any successful campaign.

(1) Be Interesting – No one talks about boring things. If you want people to talk about your cause, your company or your candidate, find a way to get peoples’ attention. Blenders are boring, but a video of a blender destroying an iPhone is a must-see. More than 150 million people have seen a Will It Blend video and sales have jumped 700% since the company launched the video series.

(2) Give People Something to Do – Grassroots means getting people involved. How will you respond when someone asks, “What can I do to help?” By giving them specific tasks to perform, your customers can help achieve your marketing goals. Including fundraising. As Seth Godin wrote in Tribes, “My mom volunteered at the Buffalo art museum for years. There’s no doubt we gave [them] more money than we would have if they’d sent us a flyer once a month.”

(3) Make it Personal and Psychological – The more personal your communications, the better. An email is easy to delete, but a phone call or personal request is harder to ignore. And tap into the proven psychological needs identified in Influence by Robert Cialdini. People have an innate desire to belong, reciprocate and act in the face of scarcity. Are you using these principles to increase compliance with your requests?

(4) Goals, Strategies and Tactics – Do you have a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely (SMART) goal? Will your strategies actually achieve the specific goal you are trying to achieve? And what about your tactics? Are they easy to perform? Thinking strategically about your goals, strategies and tactics is key, but is often ignored by candidates, companies and causes.

(5) Keep it Simple (and Short) – Just 1 in 4 Americans have a college degree and the number of Americans who read newspapers is falling. Keep your language simple, direct and to the point advise both Frank Luntz and George Orwell. You should also rely on non-verbal forms of communication, such as video. And given our short attention spans, keep your requested actions simple and easy to perform.

I’ve really enjoyed teaching and am looking forward to the spring semester in a few weeks. Now it’s back to grading final papers, revising my syllabus and taking a much-needed break.

Does the Internet is the Ultimate Catalogue?

As Chris Anderson mention in The Long Tail,

The Internet provided a way of offering a catalog to everyone—with no printing and no mailing required. Of course, some categories were more promising than others. But which?

A few weeks ago in my grassroots class we were discussing a “weird” case of marketing and how the scarcity factor help them. Of course we were talking about Will it blend? A product that has no traditional advertising. Will it blend?, has a website and many videos on Youtube. The sales of this product are based on pure word of mouth. After watching a video blending iphones, guns and golf balls, how you can avoid passing it to others? ( The iphone video only has 7,547,211 views- impressive) Think about what they do is so effective that I’m writing a blog about the product, thus giving it more publicity.

Do you think you have seen everything?

Tom Dickson, the founder, tries to make the videos funny too… watch this:

The Long Tail of Weirdness! The Internet provides everything for everyone. Might be surprised at what you can find in a simple Google search. I insist that you do it and tell me if something weird didn’t appeared. Is almost impossible!

The Internet has its advantages:
1) Communicate with people from other places
2) Collaboration
3) Post advertisements to grow your business
4) Blog Post with your ideas and your way of expressing yourself
5) Find information for studies and other things
6) You find everything

We have to love it and don’t try to understand it too much!

On the surface, YouTube appears to be a rather simple social media tool. It’s free, it’s easy and – from the many viral success stories that have emerged – it seems like all you need to do is post a video and wait for the masses to come a-runnin’! Of course, if you’re a marketer, all these new eye-balls will translate into instant sales and your investment of $0 will turn into millions!

Far be it from me to suggest that this strategy could never work. This is the internet – anything’s possible! I would, however, suggest that this is likely the exception to the rule.

A good example of this kind of strategy is Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series. A marketer (Blendtec) decides to use social media (YouTube) to promote its product (a blender) and the videos on the channel have been viewed millions of times, resulting in an increase in sales and a level of promotion not normally seen in the blender business!

Easy right? No fuss, no muss!!

Ok, in this case, it does seem to have happened rather effortlessly, but the key here is content. Blending objects like hockey pucks, oysters and an iPhone is a unique concept (though inspired by Saturday Night Live) and one that was able to draw attention. But what made it profitable was its ability to hold attention. Had it just been one video of an object being blended, it would have quickly faded, but Blendtec was ready to blend more.

So, how to emulate this success? I’m a firm believer that it all starts with content. If you have something interesting to share – whatever it might be – you have a greater likelihood of attracting attention. Just because you have a solid brand, or a loyal customer base, or double-digital increases in sales year-over-year, doesn’t mean that anyone will care about the videos that you post on YouTube. I doubt very much that Blendtec had a rabid audience or a highly recognizable brand before “Will It Blend?”, but because they created interesting content, their idea – and their brand – caught on.

Let’s take that a step further. I recently encountered two prime candidates for YouTube exploration. One is big, the other is small. One has been around over a decade, the other is still in its infancy. One has a highly recognizable brand, the other does not. You see where I’m going… In both cases they were looking to engage their audience on a new level and offer them content that would be helpful.

The first company, we’ll call them Mr. Big – now where have I heard that before? No matter – decided to put the time and effort into a dedicated YouTube Channel with all the bells and whistles. For the content, though, they decided to go with years-old infomercial-style clips that had previously been run on a different medium. So they now have a beautiful platform with content that leaves more than a little to be desired. Now certainly there is room to develop new content, but as in life so too in YouTube: you only get one chance to make a first impression. They need to grab the audience from the first viewing and give them a reason to come back for more, (think blending marbles) and the educational-type clips they’ve got going are not going to create much of a buzz.

So how about company number two? Since we have nothing but positive things to say about them, we’ll call them TalentEgg, as that is what they’re called. TalentEgg is a very impressive little company that seems on the cusp of greatness. Their founder, Lauren Friese is a bundle of energy and brains who seems like the kind of person you probably want to get to know today!

TalentEgg is a career site that focuses on careers for students and new grads and is fast becoming the go-to place for Gen-Y recruiting. They’ve currently got a toe in the waters of social media, but are keen to jump in. They have yet to build a YouTube strategy, but I have a few ideas that I think could work.

They could very easily go in the direction of Mr. Big. Put together some informative videos that highlight the strengths of the company and the underlying services, but who’s going to watch that?? Not me! As they’re targeting a younger audience, I would make it character based. Give the audience one character to keep coming back to. That character absolutely needs to be talking about things the TalentEgg does, but more in the way that Blendtec did. Lucky for TalentEgg they have a ready-made character all ready to go in Lauren. She’s already the face of the company so why not put her out there and make her even more recognizable? This could also be a useful tool for Lauren as a popular web-series could be spun-off into a number of different business ventures.

As for what specifically I think Lauren should be doing in this series, I’m not quite ready to divulge. If they’re reading this and are interested in this venture, I would be happy to sit down anytime and discuss all this in more detail.

And to be clear, I’m not suggesting that this video series – or any other for that matter – needs to be big and splashy and over the top. I think there is lots of room for videos like that, but there is also room for well-written, informative videos that are helpful to your audience. The key here is that the material is fresh and thoughtful. Remember, for every “Will It Blend?”, there are 1000 ”Something New Is Hatching”!

…pero ¿no os sugiere un simil demasiado evidente? Shake Weight™

(es incluso mejor el video que contiene el enlace que os he puesto arriba)

Soy fan de los infomerciales. Por lo general me parecen obras maestras de la posmodernidad consumista. Pero a éste, por mucho que reconozco que el principio físico en que se basa funciona, su diseño, ejecución, presentación… todo, lo llevan a ser más carne de viral descontrolado que otra cosa.

Juzgad vosotros mismos y decidme (y no, no parece seguir una premeditada estrategia de difusión al estilo de la estupenda “Will it blend?”)

Eso sí, tal vez se venda como churros (no va con doble intención), y las risas inmediatas están garantizadas.

Vía los cachondos de HCwDB.

Actualización: Hay versión masculina… me ahorro comentarios.

Actualización 2 (14/Nov): La parodia que no podía tardar en llegar.

As I have said earlier in my blog, Online is getting bigger and deeper day by day. The amount of time we spend online is startling. There is Facebook, Orkut, Yahoo, Rediff, Hotmail, Youtube, now a days we shop online, share our views on blogs, we tweet. There are so many things to do Online.

People have built their brands through this medium. There are many mediums to market the brand but the most effective and cheap medium is Online.

But you need to know the trick to market your story or your product or your brand or your resume or anything else; few people know how to use it, many don’t. 

What if you are Sony or Dell or Michael Jackson or Steve Jobs or Lindsay Lohan ? You name the medium and you have that, you can market it through every possible medium.  

PR, Print, Outdoor, Internet, TV, In-films and there are multiple options as well.

But the problem arises when you are not a biggie, if you are a common man, don’t have the money to spend on these mediums. But you have a remarkable product or a brand.

What you will do, How you will market it ? Which option you will use ?

Online is the one.

You can reach to millions of people around the globe, but the point is why they will waste their valuable time and look at what you are telling them to look at.  

Is there somthing interesting for them ? is it unique ? something innovative, something which they have never seen, something which makes them enjoy, something engaging…. It can be completely wired but the story should be convincing enough for the person to read it or see it.

There are few companies who have promoted their product or brands or themselves through online and they have succeeded in it.

I would like to share few online marketing case studies coz they are easy to understand.

Burger King – ‘Whopper sacrifice’ is a Facebook tool where users have to de-friend people from their friend list in return for a free burger. At the end of the campaign, there were a total of 233,906 users who found themselves dropped from their friends’ friend list. 

Blend Tec – ‘Blend Tec’ makes different types of blenders and these blenders can be used to make stuff like cappuccino, milkshake, making whole vegetables and fruits juices, grating cheese, chopping onions and much more.

 They came out with videos called ‘Will It Blend’, The videos feature Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson liquefying a range of items that are divided into the “Try this at home” and “don’t try this at home” sections. In ‘don’t try this at home’ section features some unusual items that portray the power of the blender from 50 marbles to handful of golf balls to a new iphone .

After being released on YouTube the videos exploded, receiving over 1.7 m views. The traffic to the company’s website, with Alexa ranking jumped to 108,000 spots in the end of 2006.

 BMW: ‘BMW FILMS’ BMW assembled a cast of A-list directors and actors & developed scripts within the basic framework of having a central character that helped people through difficult circumstances using deft driving skills—in a BMW.

 Of course it’s BMW so the production cost was super high but promoting videos was almost free.

More than 10 million films have been viewed from BMWFilms.com. Nearly 2 m people registered on the site, with 60% of those registrants opting to receive more information via e-mail. 

Sunsilk: ‘Sunsilk Gang of Girls’ – India’s first girl online community website. The website has digital makeovers, group blogs, talent shows, job discussion board for girls, chill out zone and many such things.

• Hindustan Lever claims 2,500,000 registrations to Gang of Girls site
• 25,000 girl gangs,
• 200 million hits,
• 12-13 million page views every month.
• The concept got re-launched for rural parts of India as “Sunsilk Saheli”

You might be aware of these online marketing campaigns, they are unique in their own way, at least they were when they got launched.

Like these campaigns (ones which I shared with you). Before few days, I came across one of the finest online marketing campaign done by a guy called Juan Mann, a man whose sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives. And his campaign name was ‘Free Hugs Campaign’.

To read about Free Hugs Campaign visit: http://www.freehugscampaign.org/

The video which is shown on Youtube is simply amazing and worth watching. In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

The concept is so unique that it got more than 52,000,000 viewers on Youtube. and the guy got a chance to meet Oprah Winfrey. What else you want….

Online is huge and has billions of users, we just have to know how to use it. If we know how to use it, we can build our product or brand only through this medium.

I hope you guys got an idea of Online marketing and seriously speaking this guy has done nothing great. He has taken our idea and gave an english name to it. Munna Bhai use to say it ‘Jadoo Ki Jappi’ Mr. Juan Mann has said ‘Free Hugs’. it’s always the other way round though.  

Have a look at the video, I loved it and am sure you will like it too…

Ever heard of an iPhone smoothie? Well a company called Blendtec has and so have about 7.3 million people who have seen one turned into dust on YouTube. With a budget less than the cost of one of their blenders, Blendtec turned their product into an overnight success reaching over 700% growth in sales. The secret to their success – showcasing the superb quality of their blenders in a series of online videos called “Will It Blend?”by blending the most common objects you wouldn’t find in a blender… and then letting their audience choose the next experimental ingredients.

What made Blendtec’s videos such a viral hit? First, the content is abnormally unique and intriguing with a touch of humor. Add authenticity and a social media network to that mix and a YouTube blockbuster is born.

Take the recent Dude Perfect-World’s Longest Basketball Shot video for example. A student of Texas A&M heaves a ball from the third deck of Kyle Field for a bank shot at the fifty-yard line far below. This video has been a culmination point of a few other videos in which several Aggies successfully make odd and improbable basketball shots-and their success allows them to donate money to help children in poverty stricken countries.

How had can it really be to reach web stardom with home video?

Actually, creating authentic material that has a “home-grown” feel is a difficult feat. Exhibit A: Sony’s “All I Want for Xmas is A PSP” video. This failed attempt at a comical home video rap/dance video received harsh backlash as consumers realized the movie was produced by Sony; trying to deceive their target audience was the quickest way Sony could have shot itself in the foot.

On a positive note, all these videos incorporated their respective brand into the content, which is essential for harnessing the power of viral videos for marketing purposes. Although the latter example may rethink this tactic.

Há um tempo eu estou querendo postar esta série de vídeos para vocês aqui no Techno09, e finalmente encontrei um tempinho. Trata-se de “Will It Blend?”, que na verdade são informerciais de TV – daqueles, estilo Polishop – que vendem um processador de alimentos de um jeito um tanto quanto original: para mostrar a extrema eficácia do produto, eles batem as coisas mais sortidas possíveis.

Mas não é o que você está pensando. São sortidas mesmo. Coisas que vão de cubos de gelo até iPhones, passando por Wiimotes e frangos com coca-cola. Os vídeos são 100% reais, o que é impressionante, e estão fazendo sucesso no YouTube. Realmente, ver aparelhos eletrônicos sendo triturados até virar pó pode ser bem divertido.

Abaixo, você confere três dos que eu mais gostei, mas é possível assistir a todos no canal deles no YouTube.

iPhone:

Filmadora:

Frango com Coca-Cola (!):

If you have seen the “Will It Blend” series, you know that it is absolutely awesome. The host puts his blender to the test by trying to blend some pretty ridiculous things. Marbles, glow sticks, an Ipod, a Ford Fiesta… Huh?  What was that last one you’re asking yourself?    How the heck is that even possible?

Well, I’d love to explain it all, but I simply cannot. You’ll just have to watch the episode and find out if the Ford Fiesta blends or not.

Gotta  love the cheesy smile and old western style horses in the window.

Maybe the better question is, what doesn’t blend?

Evidently I’ve been living under a rock in a dark corner of the Interwebs for sometime now.  Yesterday before I left work, Blendtec came up in conversation.  I said I’d never heard of it or its YouTube videos and I was met with an intense “WhAAAT!?”.  Someone please tell me that they’ve never heard of them either and I won’t feel so bad. But wow, what have I been missing?!

The first video I watched was when Tom Dickson, official blendmaster, completely obliterated an iPhone.  It certainly doesn’t show the durability of Apple’s product but he doesn’t stop at just the iPhone.  Everything from golf balls to glow sticks to Guitar Hero III meet their demise at the hands of Tom and the Blendtec.

Kudos to Ford Motor Company for seeing the value in the Blendtec videos and promoting their 2011 Ford Fusion made with boron steel.  Who wouldn’t want to market their product on a YouTube channel that has over 83 million views?

A couple weeks ago they started their “So you think you can BLEND” contest.  If you can submit a video of a recipe, make it popular via social media and have your friends vote on it, you can win a free Blendtec blender.

It looks like they have their own Twitter account and there are multiple brand advocates on Facebook, can’t complain about that.  So if they keep the great and entertaining videos coming, I’ll keep watching.

I wonder if the Ad Mavericks blog would blend?

I doubt it.

Author: Spencer Anderson
www.lessingflynn.com

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Like the compactness of a point-and-shoot camera, but want the visual punch of a DSLR? In the past we’ve seen point-and-shoots with various attachment options – for example the Sony Cyber-shot  series of point-and-shoot cameras has been offering attachments like a wide angle lens, telephoto lens, photo filter set, and underwater camera case for years – but none have offered the true versatility of a real DSLR.

The gap between these two realms is shrinking fast. Some define the new kid on the digital photo block as a “hybrid camera,” while others call it a “power point-and-shoot”. So what makes this new category of camera so special? Compared to traditional P&S cameras these new cameras allow for better ISO (light sensitivity), smaller lens aperture (the amount of light allowed into the lens), and some even boast compatibility with the Micro Four Thirds System (allowing for changeable lenses). Olympus recently released a statement about the E-P1 camera saying it is: “…The world’s smallest 12.3-megapixel interchangeable lens system camera that blends the high-quality still images of a DSLR with HD video, stereo Linear PCM audio recording and In-Camera Creativity within an ultra-portable body.”

These cameras are smaller and lighter than their DSLR counterparts, mainly due to the camera’s lack of a mirror box in favor of an ultra-precise electronic viewfinder. The cameras are expected to provide point-and-shoot enthusiasts with control over depth of field and other areas lacking from the P&S platform while maintaining the flexibility of a small camera. In fact the CEO of Samsung Digital Imaging Company, Sang-jin Park, said: “We estimate that the hybrid digital camera market will be over 20 percent of the global digital still-camera market by 2012.”

We’ll see some versions of the new high-end point-and-shoots on the market later this year and they are expected to be in the $600+ price range. Companies planning to be in the first wave of power point-and-shoot manufacturers include: Panasonic, Samsung, Olympus, Leica, and Sigma. It will be interesting to see where this new genre takes us.

Fonte:Blendtec

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. But if you do, send us video or pictures, ok?

I ordered the Blendtec yesterday!!  I am going to fix some of those problem cameras and lenses.  I may try a green smoothies as well.

This is the type of rubix cube I know how to solve.  Nice and easy….( That’s what she said)  Seriously though,  will it blend???

If you live in Canada you have most likely been subjected to 100’s of over saturated, digital Avril spots. These spots reek of such insincerity and lack of foresight that I won’t subject you to them here (clickers be warned). I don’t think I ever scratched my head harder then when Canada’s super brat pitched me a $1,200 SLR.

I don’t expect much from the digital photography market in the way of great advertising, which is why you NEED TO SEE THIS!

Tom Dickson, Blendtec pitch man, has made the jump to full blown cross promotion king. If you are looking to reach a smart digital savvy market this is how you do it. Tom’s signature style has not been changed in the slightest, he does his thing and Olympus gets a fun pay off.

Tom’s success with the 20 something college crowd was always sort of a mystery to me. His blenders are the McLaren F1 of the kitchen appliance world and way out of the price range for your average mudslide mixing internet hipster. I’m glad to see another company smart enough to see the value of borrowing some of his sweet sweet star power.

Good work Olympus.