My friends over at a relatively new Portland, interactive agency, Substance, launched this site a few weeks ago. I asked founder Stephen Landau about his inspiration to do the site. He responded, “We figured if we’ve been talking about beliefs and change for the last 15 months, we should support the candidate who says the same stuff. Plus, it was a fun little project to work on. Not sure why we set the donation goal so high ($5,000) but then again, what’s the point in shooting for a small, attainable goal when you can aim for a bigger, more audacious goal.”
I especially like the way the logo you create can map into Flickr automatically and can be ported at any size into Flickr and a dozen other social networking sites. Nice work.
Here’s my quick, uncreative creation using the site:
I’m surprised this ad has less than 9,000 views on YouTube. It’s brilliant and has the potentially to be passed around from inbox to inbox because it hits the mark with nearly everyone older than 24 years old who will always view themselves in that 24 year old body. I need some Centrum Silver vitamins. Check it out:
killROI is our new hero (and a weird coincedence, “eROI” in Italian means hero). The credit goes to our design team and Flash guru who concepted the yellow robot/alien design on the body of a HazMaPo vinyl adult toy (don’t let your mind stray) made by our client Unkl Brand.
killROI is cool.
He kills spam. (Check out KillSpammer.com to see what I’m talking about).
If you are in the email marketing world at all, you have an obligation to kill as much spam as possible at KillSpammer.com. Watch out for the Viagra - it’s lethal.
I guess this video reflects the wacky culture of the ultra-individualist who has defined Web 2.0 and “the long tail” of quirky interests. If you think this video is just plain annoying, please comment below, and I’ll remove it from the blog. In my eyes, it’s clever, makes its point, but is borderline gratingly-annoying. Let me know your thoughts. Thx.
If you haven’t read any of Seth Godin’s books or his blog, you probably aren’t in the eMarketing, online marketing, interactive marketing, viral marketing or just plain old marketing world. He’s phenomenal, he’s candid, and the insight you learn from each of his books and blog posts is power-packed with solid, proven ways to improve your marketing and steadily grow your company by doing lots of little things remarkably well.
I just finished his book “Small is the New Big” which is a compilation of hundreds of his blog posts over the past 4 years. On a local level, I find that I learn from some small, entrepreneurial companies that specialize in a certain niche and share their learning with the world through their blog and with me at lunch or happy hour. Stephen Landau with Substance is one of those people. He and his business partner David have one of the best blogs I’ve seen on Flash and user experiences. Their idealism in truly changing the world is infectious and they are already making a difference. Check out their blog >>
Another blog that provides some creative inspiration as one of the smallest of the “big guys” (although they are the largest independent advertising agency in the country) is Wieden + Kennedy’s Portland blog and their London blog. Both of these blogs are either inspiring or so insanely obscure that it’s pretty funny.
The only strand of relevance of the movie “300″ and online marketing is the advanced motion Graphics applied in the movie are finding their way quickly into the videogame, advergame, and web worlds. Also, I saw it with a co-worker in Hollywood, CA at the Online Marketing Media and Advertising 2007 event. And, I couldn’t stop thinking about it the whole show. I am in awe of my Spartan ancestors (my family traces its roots to Scotland, but I’ve got to believe that a noble Spartan entered the family tree somewhere).
But, the real reason why I’m blogging about the movie “300″ is the sheer primal force that seared into my soul after watching it. I’m sharpening my wood spear in my office right now so that I can go into the wild and kill the evil, dark wolf that lies within. Sparta!
When I see a good viral marketing campaign, especially from a major brand like P&G, I have a hard time NOT telling people about it. It’s only good etiquette in the online world to at least tell your closest friends and family (if it’s clean enough). The crazy thing about this viral campaign is that it got 13 million visitors and I wasn’t one of them until I was recently asked by iMediaConnection to write a Creative Review. So here it is:
I’m shocked. Procter & Gamble actually takes a risk with their “Men with Cramps” online viral campaign site. And, it’s really engaging and funny on top of it all. Another shocker– there have been 13 million visitors to this site since it launched in September, but a P&G emarketing exec and I didn’t know about it when asked about viral campaigns at a panel event at the Email Insiders Summit in Utah two weeks ago. At that event, I asked him “a lot of the campaigns you showed are good but safe, what is P&G doing to compete with the caliber of viral sites like favorite Philips’ ShaveEverywhere site?” His response was that P&G has taken risks before with viral sites targeted in Europe, but plays it safe in the U.S.
Wieden+Kennedy headquarters in Portland, Oregon has held off entering into the interactive agency world for the past decade until now. Wieden has fervently stayed true to its core talent in TV and print advertising until its recent hiring of Carat Fusion exec, Renny Gleeson, as its global director of digital strategies. Arguably, the most talented independent, private agency in traditional mediums, WK is going to make a strong run at the online world with this new infusion of talent and business direction. WK has a lot of ground to make up to catch up with online viral marketing pioneer Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
In his presentation, Porter brought up examples of how the world is moving so fast that a big news story hits for a few hours and then that person / story is forgotten about. This is often true of ”memorable” ad campaigns. The lifespan of great ad campaigns has gotten shorter and shorter with so much noise out there, especially with user-generated content. In fact, one panelist on ”The Creative Panel” pointed out that 90% of big box-office Hollywood films fail, so why expect all TV advertising to succeed? Coming up with and executing upon a big idea is exceedingly difficult and there needs to be a tolerance around how to define success.
The Secret of Viral Marketing
No one wants to be bored. Follow Plato’s advice where he wrote “There is NO learning without emotion.”
It needs to be creative, entertaining, or informational - enough for people to feel third-party validation from sending something unique, authentic to a friend.
Case Study: Burger King’s Subservient Chicken www.subservientchicken.com
This site launched 3 years ago and within 12 days, there were 100 million hits to the site and the average amount of time spent on the site per user was 7 minutes. 3 years later, there have been a total of 460 million hits and it completely resonates with the 16-25 year old male demographic who are powereaters at Burger King.
More Chuck Porter advice:
You can’t hide online.
Stay loose and back winners - as long as a campaign is HOT, back it. But, be very sensitive to pull the campaign before it gets stale. This is a tight balancing act.
Retro techie meets creative meets Web 2.0. This video shows the viral nature of YouTube and authentic, creative video showcased on the Web 2.0 site. I received an email from someone in my office, a friend in Belgium, and another business associate in the span of 2 days. Fascinating.
I opened my inbox this morning to an email from my buddy Joe calling me Scruffaluffagus and telling me my facial hair is as outdated as Hammer Pants. After crossing Joe off my list of people I’d buy a car for if I won the lottery, I followed a link to an audio/video message he created for me. What I was presented with was a talking head spouting out some critique of my hair stylings. Intrigued and slightly bruised, I ventured into the linked website, barberbrigade.com.
The spinning barber shop stripe sign used as a loading status bar, along with the website’s URL, were enough to tie this all together. It’s a site dedicated to male grooming. All the outright and unwarranted abuse of my facial fuzz fashion fax pas aside, my experience with barberbrigade.com was a good one. The design of this website (it’s flash man, get with the program), is as sweet as Joe’s girlfriends lips (think honey with a touch of caramel). Almost everything on the site is clickable and interactive. The nutty designers of the site at Wexley School for Girls did a great job of flexing their creative creativeness. There are sound bites, birds that take dumps and even a fish that blows balloon animals.
I was quickly hooked by the interactivity and design. So much so that I spent a good hour on the site (Yes, while at work but it’s cool, I put my hours under miscellaneous on the timesheet.). The site also succeeded in sparking my interest in the grooming products it is attempting to sell. I even showed them to my lady. Personally, I still have a hard time spending more than $10 on anything to do with hair so if she wants me to look pretty, she’ll have to dig into her pockets. Hey, I’m no $2 whore you know. Not like Joe.
So, how do you add humor and potential viral marketing to a campaign surrounding cancer? You launch a site called NoticeYourNuts.com. Apparently, 99% of testicular cancer is treatable if discovered early. I would have never known that if I didn’t get a couple emails from friends to tell me to check out this funny but poignant online video. Here’s my question though: aren’t most guys pretty in tune with their nuts? What I didn’t get from the video is what to look out for - weird growth? something funky? Alright, I’m curious enough now to look it up on www.webmd.com.
We worked with Kettle Foods (LOVE THE CHIPS) again to put together a great new Crave Club Site. Hats off to Kettle as they are great designers and to Maxwell PR for the direction. This is a great example of how you can build a community around a brand.
http://www.findanewflavor.com
I am Bold, Grown-up Cheese.
I’m a bold, big city person. Museums, theater, fine dining and cool shops… I can even appreciate performance art. I’ve got grown-up tastes but I’m not stuffy or stiff. I know how to have fun and I’m just as comfortable at a white linen-laid table as I am at the hot dog cart. I’ve got style. An individualist who isn’t afraid to show my true colors or to stand out in a crowd.
Instead of stumbling upon this site from a link within a proud friend’s email, I actually found this hilarious site as a link from one of my favorite viral marketing blogs, Adverblog. The “Shave Everywhere” Philips micro-site promotes male grooming. My personal favorites on this site include the cheesy male voiceover and the featured extra optical inch you apparently get if you are an agressive trimmer. Guys - please comment. A buddy of mine did a recent poll at a party, and said that 14 out of 20 men trim. I didn’t believe him, but it seems that there is now some conclusive evidence.
When Does One Permission Overwrite The Other - In the world of multichannel and location opt in and opt out how do you keep your lists in sync? Can you?
Let me put some scenarios on the table to give you some real world examples of challenges I have been facing in some recent work with a retailer.
1. Your customer opts in from your [...]
Here is a great example of making your transactional email more than just a notification. When done right, transactional email can be a great branding opportunity.
Check out this awesome shipping confirmation email from Cd Baby below (click to enlarge).
Chuck Porter, Chairman of 
