YouTube & Twitter show-and-tell

Monetization - the ultimate challenge for web platform hopefuls. Once they've reached critical mass, how to make money? The most obvious answer is to offer some form of web advertising, whether display or Google Ad Words.

But given the increasing banner blindness in consumers everywhere, social media sites like YouTube and Twitter need to show advertisers that deeper engagement can be achieved through their platforms. After all, credibility is an imperative for real communication or persuasion.


To help advertisers see how they can play a role in this, YouTube has launched a Show & Tell channel that showcases best-in-class case studies. Users can browse the latest in Interactive Videos, Brand Channels, Homepages & Viral Hits. The Creatives' Corner is hosted by the Art Directors Club and includes materials on storytelling, viral videos, opportunities, etc.

Twitter is also showcasing their most maximized accounts, but going less branded. Twitter Tales asks "How do you use Twitter?" and shares content in the categories of Life, Community and Humor.
I really like this effort, especially after attending the New York chapter of the 140Conference last Spring, where teachers, NGOs, TV personalities, humanitarians, musicians, comedians, and more shared their best uses of the real-time web (mostly not branded!).

mccann answers mad men

I wasn't sure what to make of Ken Cosgrove's dig at McCann Erickson in the latest Mad Men episode except to think that there aren't very many old school agencies that hold as much clout then as it does now. Besides that, well, I guess there are probably ignoramuses everywhere and somebody acquired in a hostile takeover would be the first to notice point it out.

But in the spirit of competition?, here is McCann's reply.



More from NYMag and the Times.

law of diminishing productivity

The longer you work, the less productive you are!

In celebration of all my recent overtime!

open....

This week was crazy. Insane. Impossible. Sick.
But things worked out somehow.

I think we're finding our groove.  I'm getting better perspective.

So before anything else happens I want to write that this is great. Best mood ever.

photo by Buttersweet - PLEASE REMEMBER OUR FRIENDS IN CHILE	via PhotoRee

Inception for Marketers... and Planners

Inception resonated with me because it hit on many of the challenges I face as an advertiser. Characters in the film mentioned inspiration, ideas and creation, which advertising folks tackle everyday.

The Team

In a new kind of corporate espionage, Leonardo di Caprio's Dom enters people's subconscious (so marketing-aptly referred to as "targets") to extract guarded bits of information. A challenge is posed to him by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a leading energy trader with a unique request: "If you can steal an idea from someone's mind, why can't you plant one?".

The idea is controversial even for other characters in the film. "True inspiration is impossible to fake," asserts Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Dom's long-time partner. But of course Dom accepts because [see film for sub-plot], and puts his team together by recruiting an architect, a forger and a chemist. Enter charming (but manly walker) Ellen Page, very hot Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao.

The Brief

Saito briefs them on the task at hand: a strong competitor is about to take a monopoly on energy trading. This competition is a family-run business threatening to buy Saito out. The only way to prevent this is to target the magnate's son and convince him to split up the empire, which he is soon to inherit since dad is about to kick the bucket.

The Strategy

My favorite scene in the film is when the team gets together to discuss their strategy - how to translate a bigger business issue into an idea that will take root? I loved this part since it felt  similar to the process of strategic planning in advertising.

When we start a new project, we outline the objective and target market then try to figure out an insight that will make our brand or product resonate. Another major part of the strategy is the Engagement Plan - this echoes the journey we would like to take the consumer on for their path to purchase. The plan is usually split up into phases, each with a different objective: e.g. Awareness, Trial, Loyalty, and corresponding messaging or executions.

This is an important tool since consumers increasingly need to be remidned of a brand or product's relevance in their lives. This is often a lengthy process that requires many phases of communication to increase the brand's relevance on many different layers. Just like in the film, there are often barriers that each layer has to address before a brand or idea will truly adhere.

The Engagement Plan

My favorite, favorite part was when Eames (again, the hot Tom Hardy) was taking the team through his thinking on how to reduce the complex outcome (of splitting up father's empire) into a much simpler idea. I imagine that if Saito, as the "client" had asked for a one-pager summing up the task at hand and executional phases, it would have looked something like this:




***SPOILER ALERT***
Inception EP

What do you think?!

I imagine that other advertisers and planners would have noticed that intersection of the concepts in the film with the meat of our daily professional lives - the art of persuasion.

learning trip / be your digital best: digital marketing philippines

Was back at my old office yesterday to give a talk - our boss asked me to share about about my trip to the States and digital learning in New York. I actually wrote the presentation a month ago but just hadn't been able to deliver it since everyone (including me, haha especially me!) was busy.

It was nice to look back at what I had written down almost as soon as I had gotten back to work, fresh from the trip and before getting stressed out handling new projects.

The "framework" I was asked to use was: Five things learned, Five things unlearned. The premise was that there are new mindsets we need to develop to really go digital, but there are also some things that, as above-the-line marketers, we have to forget.

Here are my five on five, which I plan to write about in more detail in separate posts:

FIVE LEARNED:

• Value Marketing, inspired by MRM
• Role of Consumer, inspired by the 140 Conference
• Context changes with mobile, inspired by very a wired city
• Be inspired by the art world, inspired by a very self-expressed city
• No cheat sheet, only problem-solving, inspired by NYU

FIVE UNLEARNED:

• Optimization over launch
• Long-term measurement over short-term
• Propagation over viral
• Quality over quantity, but quantity over campaign
• Role of Consumer over all!

It was hard to whittle down the list of things I had learned to just five (or ten). Especially because I don't think I've really realized yet what I really got out of going to New York and trying to immerse in digital and art. But that's what this blog is for!

social object creation / be your digital best: digital marketing philippines

Saw this Cannes-winning Mars bar on TheInspirationRoom. Love the idea and execution that brings to life one way that brands can make their products engaging in the real world.

This reminded me of other executions I've seen in the past - Beck released a black CD cover with stickers, allowing their fans to customize their own covers. Penguin has also released DIY (Design-It-Yourself) covers for some of their classic titles. Definitely not a new idea, bu still sticky.

Given the way consumers have immersed in social media, it has become a much bigger challenge to keep real-world products sticky. But allowing us to take ownership is a good way to win. Maybe the challenge is to allow more ways for consumers to put their own stamp on things, and help them turn products into personal social objects.

thinking tools

Do you think using A3 paper,
letter-sized blank paper,
legal-sized bond paper,
notebook paper,
small pieces of paper,
a pile of scratch paper,
graphing paper?

Do you think using a pen,
markers,
pencils,
old-school sharperner sharpened pencils,
a Wacom pen,
fingers on an iPad?

Do you need silence,
or do do you prefer
some Jimi,
Phoenix,
Marsalis
 or Sandwich?

Do you need
Starbucks,
Chippy,
yosi,
maybe Absolut
to get you going?

Do you like a big empty table,
a view of the sea,
a coffee shop bustle?

Do you think in pictures,
or words,
mindmaps,
doodles,
phrases,
sentences?

photo by quacktaculous	via PhotoRee

internet marketing / be your digital best: digital marketing philippines

Google Ad Words reports that the term "internet marketing" (9900 searches in May) is searched for a lot more than the term "digital marketing" (vs 720 searches) in the Philippines.

I wish I could re-set this whole blog to remind us to "be our INTERNET best", but that really isn't practical. The web is, right now, the biggest chunk of "digital" channels. But increasingly, mobile is becoming more important. And each traditional / mainstream medium is finding ways to go digital as well - TVs in the US run on digital signals, radio stations are now streaming online. Dynamic electronic billboards are slowly replacing traditional  tarpaulin OOH.

I wonder when local searches will catch up with this. When they do, www.beyourdigitalbest.com will be waiting!

photo by Andrew-Hyde	via PhotoRee

DIGITAL STRATEGIC PLANNING | be your digital best: digital marketing philippines

Being in tune with the digital landscape in order to find meaningful roles that brands can play in consumers’ digital lives

• Identifying the Role of Digital in line with interactive capabilities & relationship-building
• Designing a Digital Engagement Plan that capitalizes on consumers’ digital habits
• Developing a Measurement & Optimization Strategy that will trace accountability & maximize ad budgets

Have been trying to define this all weekend! What do you think?
Can I do all of these things? Almost! The biggest problem is the third bullet. But am working on it.

a new call-to-action: click or call

I liked hearing a lot of commercials ending with "CLICK OR CALL" as the call-to-action.

It acknowledges the diversifying ways that people are getting in touch with brands, and reminding them that they can often get easy, relevant service through optimized company websites.

photo by somefool ∴ Matt	via PhotoRee

Internet Marketing Philippines

What is the state of Internet Marketing Philippines?

Some questions I have, and hope to slowly find the answers to:

• How much are we really making? (Industry revenue)
• Who are the most "digital" clients - among multinationals, other big local businesses and SME's?
• Who are the key players - agencies, boutiques or freelancers?
• Who is leading the charge on to develop research and data on usage among different segments? 
• What are the localized industry measurement standards?

I think these are things we need to figure out to properly grow the industry.

Mobile social networking primer: Foursquare

(Or, a starter guide for my dad — He has never belonged to any social networks, not Facebook, Twitter or even Gmail. So I was very surprised to receive an invite to become his Foursquare contact. I wanted to welcome him to social media and help him get started in the space.)

Hi Dad!

Congratulations on making it to the social graph (that's what they call our virtual social networks on sites like Facebook and Twitter). Still think it is interesting that you've gotten online via Foursquare, and not through a more obvious platform like the aforementioned Facebook or Twitter. But I think you've chosen a good place to start.

Thought I'd give you a few tips to maximize your Foursquare membership.

(Am going to do a follow-up on getting started with Twitter, since I think you'd actually have an even better time with that. But first things first.)

Ever wanted to be mayor? Foursquare is the way to go

What it is. A social mapping service that allows users to update their profiles with their whereabouts. Users can manually enter their location (e.g. New York Times Building, Times Square), or select for 4sq's list of venues nearby.

How to use it

• Access: You can download an app (for iPhone, Android or Blackberry) or log on to the mobile site.
• "Check-in": Using the app or mobile site, check-in to different places - Ayala Tower (office), Lumbang (home), Greenbelt Theater, Salcedo Market, Fully Booked, etc.
• Add a Tip: You give Tips about what to do, eat or see at different venues, or browse others' recommendations.
• A note on accuracy: You're only supposed to check-in when you're actually at the place you're checking in to. But Foursquare's GPS isn't very strict and you can check-in from across the street or up to a few blocks away. It can tell though if you're not in the area at all and won't give you points.
• Get points!: Foursquare keeps a leaderboard of your points earned (by checking in, going to new places, etc) vs. your contacts'. You do want "quality" check-ins because only those will earn you mayorships and badges.

What you get

• Be crowned Mayor: If you have the most check-ins at a given venue, you are automatically crowned "mayor" of that place. What's the point? Who doesn't want a virtual crown? Some establishments are starting to give mayors special freebies or privileges. Not sure if that's true for Manila Mayors yet though.
• Get badges: Even better, Foursquare rewards usage with badges. This is where it gets fun - you get these badges for completing different levels of usage - when you check in 1, 10, 25, 50 times, when you check in 4x in a week, etc. There are location-specific badges, like one for making it above 59th St. in NY or riding the Bart in SF 7x. There are branded badges - I have one for hitting five Starbuckses. My badges are proudly on display on the left side of this page!

Why to use it (or not)

• Why not: There are privacy concerns - people wonder if they're asking to be robbed by broadcasting to the world that they aren't home. The game also gets tiring after you've acquired several badges.
• Why: IT'S FUN! Especially if you like games, and it really hits a sweet spot for digital or competitive people like me.
• Why, when more people are using it: Assuming people use the service regularly, it would be a great way to keep track of friends and family members. It's also a good way to discover new places through friends' check-ins.
• Why, if you were a business-owner or brand guy: It is a great tool to find and interact with customers. It’s also a nice platform to get people to interact with your brand – Bravo puts listings of their recommended restaurants (e.g. by Top Chef chefs) that people can check-in to, to get Bravo badges. Jimmy Choo just launched a new shoe with a 4sq scavenger hunt!

And guess what - you can sync your Foursquare to your (upcoming?) Twitter account. But more about that in an upcoming post.

See you on the square!



Bea  :)

micro-engagement approval

 I remember how long it used to take to get approval on a TV ad, a thirty-second, one-message-fits-all spot.

We would get the client brief (often missing certain details, like sometimes the product!), work on internal strategy. Then creatives would work their magic and we would be off to client, so confident in our ideas that you would have thought that we had the cure to cancer on a storyboard. Presentation, revisions. Sometimes this would happen one, two, three... up to a dozen times depending on the client in question. Finally, board approval. A producer would be brought in, the project bidded out to production houses and directors. When finally the AE found a way to wrangle creative, client, production team and director on to the same page to agree on budget, timeline and treatment - advertising project management can get so convoluted that when things work out it feels like the starts have miraculously aligned - the real chaos would begin.

Casting, acting workshops, costume reviews. Then the shoot - sometimes early in the morning, sometimes very far out of town, hazy day/s of catered food and lights & action. The film would be graded, sound dubbed (I think), creatives present at all events. Then agency viewing of the edit or "offline", then client viewing. Revisions. Back and forth, revisions. And once ready, preparation of the final or "online" material. The AE would then head to the Ad Standards Council for yet another approval of the material. By this time the media agency would have gotten involved, then release tapes would be prepared and sent out to each of the stations in the visual media schedule.

All of this for one material.


This is what I started thinking while reading about micro marketing. I guess the idea is that we're living, marketing and selling in a long-tail world and millions of micro-segments exist. And we can reach them now online, often 1:1 in real conversations.

But that idea takes on a different meaning when you're the digital person in a traditional (media) world. I can't imagine how approval is going to happen when digital kicks in full force and we're going to have to get clients to sign off on millions of micro-messages. Maybe we'll need to hire someone to handle approval management. Daunting. Still exciting.

the search is on for cute boots

I love this because it reinforces my point about Facebook-as-news-source.

Surveillance via Facebook

Facebook is the new “mass media”, and fulfills an important media function: Surveillance.

photo by gerlos	via PhotoRee

There are many communication theories that cover our relationship to media. A quick search on Google reminded me that it was Lasswell (he had the “who, says what, in which channel, to whom, and with what effect” model) who theorized that mass media fulfills, among others, a surveillance function, and gives the audience information about what is going on in the world that “everybody” knows. In the former “mass” media age, this pertained to news – as it relates to me today, updates on the identity of the Times Square bomber or the race for Vice President in the Philippine elections.

Like many communication theories, Lasswell’s has received criticism for being too simplistic and general. But I’ve always rememebered and agreed with the idea of surveillance. I think, regardless of mass media, that we are observant beings who have varying levels of voyeuristic tendencies – everybody gossips. And as social networks like Facebook have expanded in terms of both reach (currently over 10M Philippine users) and granularity (status updates, likes, comments, privacy settings, etc), there is a lot more information going around that we can monitor.

Surveillance & me
When I was in college, I was pretty “tsismosa”, that’s Tagalog for “gossip”. In our group I liked knowing what was going on – most especially in the love / lust / like category. When we went out drinking, people would wait for me to get tipsy in case I spilled the latest tsismis (gossip). Friends actually ended up revealing a lot of secrets that they assumed I’d already heard. Good times.

Since I started working, I’ve lost touch with a lot of people and have certainly regressed in terms of knowing what is going on with everyone. I no longer have the latest news on who is getting together, breaking up, who is looking for a job, in danger of getting fired, in the process of being pirated, etc.

Surveillance via Facebook
But since more Filipinos started getting on Facebook in 2007, it has become my news central. It tells me who has resigned, who is travelling and where, who has broken up or is getting engaged, what bands are coming to town. From the latest Farmville acquisitions, or the extra Café Word stock, to the sports / elections / entertainment updates, Facebook is a great way to survey what is going on in my social sphere. Event invitations tell me the must-see concerts or the must-attend parties, relationship status tell me who is newlly single and on the rebound, tech-savvy friends give the latest must-have gadgets, and pop-culture junkies tell me what movies, music or YouTube clips not to miss. From thousands of miles away, I’ll even find out which of my officemates are being subjected to torturous overtime.

I don’t like to read the news (hence the extremely “personal” connection to the surveillance function!) but I am even more attuned now to current events. If it is important, someone will post it on Facebook. That is actually how I found out about the Times Square bombing or read vice presidential candidate Mar Roxas’ supporters praying that he would somehow still win the VP race.

Mass, i.e. Many-to-many
Facebook is not a “mass medium” in terms of old-school broadcast that distributed one set of content to a mass of people, one-to-many. But it is “mass” in the sense that it broadcasts content to millions. Only the content comes from all the different users, making it a many-to-many mass medium.
In addition, the fact that the “many” are my personal contacts actually helps to validate “news” since I know that I can trust most of them. I am also usually aware of the different personal value systems and the biases each one may have. And even taking that into account, there is no longer a need to depend on an “omnicious” news commentary.

Maybe it’s just me. But paying attention to my Facebook news feed makes me feel like I’ve got a handle on what’s going on in the world, coming from a network that I actually care about – my social graph.