eROI Days Email Agency

Crusty Demon is a advergame site for a new video game. It is a little racy, but spot on for the demographic. Simple and well executed. Keep in mind that advergame sites are used to build the viral spread of the intended KPI (Key Performance Index) that you have established.

The Shins was a site developed by the one and only James Hall from the eROI team. James has personally known the guys in the band for a while and he cooked up a great flash site to showcase the music, videos and quirkiness of the band. Try to find all the hidden easter eggs in the main page of the site.

We Are the Web is a humorous way to share the message about Net Neutrality Laws that are being fought in the high government courts and Senate. The goal is to educate, share and drive you to take action.

Tea Partay was an underground campaign used to promote a beverage company. It was launched without much promotion, but was done so well that many people took it upon themselves to load it up to YouTube and other video sites. If you do your job well, the online community will validate your brand and possibly even do your job for you.

The Viral Chart offers two main services to help advertisers spread and monitor their work, showcasing the most popular viral content on a 7 day and overall basis and tracking for your specific viral media campaign.

The Viral Chart helps advertisers gain insight into trends of viral media work’s implementation using a series of real-time tracking tools.

The Stunners is an off beat video story blog that was used to grow the reach of a large drug company about hair loss. If you have ever met notable baldy Ryan Buchanan you know how serious an issue hair loss can be.

Supporters is a simple site (following the lead of many) that uses consumer generated text to create an experience worthy of passing on to a friend. Just to cheer them up.

Google Image Labeler was a novel idea to use existing search technology and create a game out of it. It is not only a way to challenge people all over the world, but allows Google to leverage users ideas on how to tag an image. Great example of how the community is often more powerful than the technology.

All 2.0 Apps can be found in this aggregator site. It Some of the ideas out there that are launching almost daily might amaze you. The game is constantly evolving.

ClickZ (and every other media company in the world) just reported that:

“Google will acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion, marrying the dominant force in Internet search with the first and most powerful brand in networked Web video sharing, the companies announced. The deal is expected to close in Q4.

The agreement represents a big step into multimedia content and tools for Google. The company has long stated its enthusiasm for video, but has so far struggled to build a large audience around its own platform. With a value pegged at nearly three times the price News Corp. paid for MySpace only 15 months ago, the deal is also testament to the rise of social networking technologies.

“The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a statement. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.”

YouTube CEO Chad Hurley: “By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners. I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.”

YouTube will retain its brand identity and keep its offices in San Bruno, Calif.”

YouTube graces the cover of Forbes magazine and has a write up in Newsweek. It seems everywhere I turn, I hear about YouTube and MySpace defining the next wave of growth of the Internet. The Online Marketing Media and Advertising show in New York City had 20+ speakers, panelists, and breakout sessions over 2 days that reinforced this message at every opportunity.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky and other ad agencies are creating such compelling ads (e.g. VW ad below) and online experiences (Burger King’s SubservientChicken.com), that loyal fans are uploading it to Web 2.0 superstars like YouTube and creating communities around these advertising concepts on MySpace.

I’m a bald guy and proud of it. I have a special kinship with other bald folks, but I’m having a tough time with another bald CEO in the email world.

Dan Fost, a journalist for the San Fransisco Chronicle, writes, “With his perfectly shaved head, Jim Fowler looks like Mr. Clean. But don’t be fooled. The CEO of San Mateo’s Jigsaw Data Corp. prefers to liken himself to another famous cue ball: Dr. Evil. In taking on the identity of Austin Powers’ archenemy, Fowler is riffing on the reputation he’s gaining online as a man willing to knock down established social mores, while showing what critics say is an utter disregard for people’s privacy.

The furor is over Jigsaw’s system of encouraging people to enter business contacts into an easily accessible Web database. Sign up at the site, www.jigsaw.com, and you can get points for entering the contents of your Rolodex. You can even sell those points for money. Since it started operations on Jan. 1, 2004, Jigsaw has amassed a database of 3 million contacts at 150,000 companies, and the company expects that to grow to 5 million by year’s end. Only 131 of its 105,000 members sell points, Fowler said. “Almost all trade data to get data.” Michael Arrington, who writes the TechCrunch blog, fingered Jigsaw as “evil,” calling it a “really, really bad idea.” Rafe Needleman, who writes for the influential tech publication Release 1.0, said that it was “clever but creepy” and that it breaks the social contract.

Annalee Newitz, vice president of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, an international organization based in San Francisco, called Jigsaw a “stalkers’ paradise,” as well as a breeding ground for identity thieves and spammers. David Batstone, a professor of ethics at the University of San Francisco, said that if someone took his information off of his business card or from the signature attached to an e-mail he sent — two common methods that Fowler encourages — then he would feel “like there had been a real violation of ethical expectations that we have with each other.”

Read the full article >>

Alex Williams in my office sent me this email. Not sure of the source, but it hits the mark

WIKIPEDIA

Benchmark: You didn’t create your own entry.

Perfect for: Filmmakers, playwrights, Ashlee Simpson.

When you’ve made it: No one has any idea that your best friend wrote about your “vast, impressive contributions to the modern cultural landscape.”

When you’ve really, really made it: You are no longer disputed for neutrality.

MySPACE

Benchmark: More than 10,000 friends. 50 comments. You are online now.

Perfect for: 12-year-olds, musicians, Dane Cook.

When you’ve made it: Your Top 8 is la creme de la creme of Bratz fans with saucy, up-to-no-good stares. Your comments cup overfloweth.

When you’ve really, really made it: You and Tom talk, like, all the time.

YOUTUBE

Benchmark: You’ve been downloaded 50,000 times and passed around more than a New York socialite in the Hamptons on a long holiday weekend.

Perfect for: That dude in Romania with the Web cam, comedians.

When you’ve made it: You are linked to on more than 100 different Web sites. The words “blog” and “spot” have never sounded quite so sweet.

When you’ve really, really made it: When your video crashes the site. You’re called to direct a music video.

TECHNORATI

Benchmark: You have more than 50 inbound links.

Perfect for: College students, Vanity Fair writers.

When you’ve made it: There is serious blogometric pressure. Serious.

When you’ve really, really made it: You made Cory Doctorow giggle.

FLICKR

Benchmark: You have been “favorited” more than 300 times.

Perfect for: People with hands.

When you’ve made it: You get tagged more than an NYU freshman on a highway overpass.

When you’ve really, really made it: You have just blogged your pants. You are not sorry.

Our wacky e-marketing agency, eROI, created an off-the-wall site called “Send a High Five” to spread the virtual love and sincerity of a good high five. The site www.SendaHighFive.com was a labor of love for us. We wanted dip our toes into the ocean that is social networking and flex our creative muscles at the same time. We have certainly had some interesting initial results. On 4/20/06, we seeded the site on Wikipedia.

The stoners came out in droves. 4/20, which also happened to be National High Five Day this year, was our single best day for unique visits to the High Five site. Who says smoking reefer makes you unproductive? Our toking test audience gave us two bongs up but now we ask ourselves, “Do you have to be high to five?” We think not and we are ready to get the rest of the world on the High Five love-train. Check out the site, create a High Five and send it to me. We’ll keep you updated with the results of our Social Media / viral marketing experiment.

We at eROI are a little off-kilter. We dare to do some pretty stupid things and succeed at doing that regularly. Today (4.20.06), we collectively came up with the idea to launch a site called SendaHighFive.com on National High Five Day. You may ask, “What’s the point?” And I’ll answer, “I’m not really sure.” As an idealist, I’d say that it’s a site about peace, unity, creativity, and human connection. As a realist, I might admit that it’s a bit of an experiment to see if a few folks get the creative urge to send me a high five.

You may think it’s stupid, maybe random, or some have said it’s brilliant (my 4-year old daughter counts, right?) So, don’t overanalyze it and just try it out. Go to www.sendahighfive.com, click “Get Started” and upload a photo, add some flare or bling and send it to ryan@eroi.com. Thanks holmies.

Think back to 1999 when we were all going to change the world with the internet. Sites and ideas sprang up overnight and leapt into the media frenzy on a daily basis. The media controlled the game and companies had to pay dearly to leverage the saturated pages of every offline vehicle to get their messaging in front of businesses and consumers. Now, flash forward to 2006, the tables have been turned to a method of consumers running the show. Everyone from your co-workers, children and parents have begun to embrace the world of consumer generated content, blogging, social media sites and word of mouth marketing.

Today we have many online vehicles to move our messaging across the globe in a relatively inexpensive way, but it also leads us into new, unfamiliar waters of relinquishing some control. This may be the hardest part of the entire movement; where people outside of your ad agency or internal marketing group can make or break your message.
How have we approached it?

We have been fortunate to help many companies move from the sidelines to the frontlines of this next wave in marketing. We are not going to tell you that it hasn’t been without fear or trepidation on the parts of many VPs and Legal Counsels, but in the end it’s been an eye opener to the power you can unleash for your brand and campaign. So, before we dive into a quick overview of how your business might be able to use this medium, fasten your seat belt and throw some of your old notions to the wind, but not to chance.

Kettle Foods Dips Toe into Social Media
In the second year of the Crave campaign that was executed by Maxwell PR and eROI for Kettle Foods, all parties involved wanted to leverage the momentum of brand evangelism and consumer generated media. But what would be a simple way to move into this realm without releasing all control. The answer came in the form of the StraightUpFlavor.com site for voting on the next flavor of Kettle Foods chips. This provided a way for consumers to supply feedback to the company. After planning on the method of collection, the new site opened up to accept this media in an uncontrolled format. After the first week of results, Kettle Foods loved all of the consumer comments. Thus, the company has created a way to get direct consumer feedback for new concepts/flavors.

Jack Klugman Podcasts
Jack Klugman, the actor from the Odd Couple and Quincy MD, was releasing a new book on his life and friendship with Tony Randall. The national media tour was planned; book signing dates set and PR ready to roll. However, what about the audience that wouldn’t be hit through these channels? The idea for a TonyandMe Blog was born. This blog would allow Jack to create a new media strategy in a real grass roots way. Sitting down with his son over a long weekend, Jack started recording stories about the friends he had in his life and anecdotes about each. Besides sharing the stories with his own son, he was also able to share his stories online with many. The plan used RSS (Real Simple Syndication), Podcasts and grass roots efforts to let others pass and interact with his message. With a few calls to Itunes, Jack was placed in the home page rotation of featured content driving his podcast to unimagined highs and downloads. With this new organic visibility, small video clips were created from live events, old footage and interviews to keep the content library available and active and to keep the online audience engaged through the first few months of the book release and holiday season.

Mass Media and Our Love of Celebrities
DeliveryAgent approached eROI to help test the waters for a new site as well as support for the current paid effort for the ShoptheScene.com (NBC, ABC, Miramax, Project Runway, Queer Eye and more). A new blog and social media plan is what resulted. The idea was to use a blog to test efforts and define what types of media (text, audio and video) would be rapid drivers of organic search engine and social media traffic. A three tiered strategy was created as to not over extend the internal requirements of the DeliveryAgent team from current roles, and build a plan that could be ramped up or even killed off if deemed a liability. The use of a blog or disposable URL gives the ability to scale or kill a concept that is not ultimately tied to other sites or the brand.

How will you approach it?

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I got a legitimate-looking email from a friend that said he forwarded an article from the World Examiner with a credible link to that article. This is what I saw on the world-examiner.com site:

While I appreciate the political jabs from a Republican friend (yes, there are a few semi-decent Republicans out there), this concept struck me as brilliant. I immediately sent a “Rumor” headline article to my brother-in-law and uncle to let the word get out about their porn star past.

Try it yourself:
Make a rumor headline and send it today >>