FRANKthoughts

OK, to call this a blogger campaign is a bit of an overstatement. All NAB did was submit comments with a promotional message to 5-6 blogs. The blogs involved didn’t like it. Crikey was on it. Marketing mag followed. Duncan Riley called to boycott the bank. Jim Stewart interviewed NAB’s spokesperson. Julian Cole spammed back.

Let’s quickly take the spam test. Comments not related to blog posts? check. Comments promoting a product? check. Comments are copy/paste job from a company? check. Yep, this is most definitely spam. Now, the responsible PR agency Cox+Inall don’t blog. I will be surprised if they comment or even read blogs. That’s why they should have done research or ask someone who blogs before executing.

Here’s the number one rule when going to do anything involving social media: make sure the company you’re using is a participant not a watcher.

Just found this little gem thanks to Paul Isakson.

For more info go to the blu blog. For more cool stuff check out their blogroll.

Populrs is a daily feed of the most popular stuff on the web. You can find feeds from digg, delicious, reddit, flickr, youtube, newsvine, truemors, google news, yahoo news, boingboing, stumbleupon and even some quickies from people like Seth Godin, Ze frank and and popular vlogs like rocketboom. There is also a personalisation option and if you’re busy you can put up to 20 items on your clipboard for later viewing.

If you’re a buzz freak you can switch to popmania for a triple dosage of web goodness. OK, so its not a new concept as RSS was around for years but it does give you a central place to catch up with stuff (and for those who are RSS shy, there is no need to deal with a reader). Give it a try and tell me what you think. Here is something from Popurls creator, Thomas Marban. The whole thing took him a day to build.

  I thought it was very smart of Australian Fashion Week to enlist and import the collective powers of elite-fashion bloggers last week in Sydney. It’s a reminder of blog-power as the balance shifts from the monthly monoliths with advertiser-vested interests to independent fashionistas who are happy to say it as they see it. One of the elite ‘bryanboy‘ has 180,000 visitors daily! (5.4 million visitors in a month….) compare this to Vogue Australia with a monthly circulation of approx 50,000 and ultimate readership of 337,000 (source Roy Morgan)
The search for instant gratification from independent observers has changed the dynamics of the front row elite as bloggers and online retailers such as Net-a-Porter jostle for the keyboard.
whatd’a think people?

When the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) of Australia partnered with google to seed the idea of “tell us what makes your company tick and a great place to work” we figured FRANk has a case.

Since FRANk’s inception we have been asked “Who is FRANk?” hence our video clip was conceived. Anyone who has been here loves our view, our location, our balcony and hopefully the vibe. So in the guise of James Boag we expose who FRANk is by where FRANk is and where FRANk goes, we even borrowed a helicopter to capture that real-google map look.

FRANk is firmly Melbourne based for lifestyle-satisfaction and fulfillment. We overlook Grattan Gardens towards the Chapel St end of Greville Street in the heart of Prahran. Aside from the ‘work-thing’ a typical week in our neighbourhood is that of massages, fruits, breads, cheeses and nice things at Prahran market, swimming in Prahran’s heated 50m outdoor pool, coffee shops a plenty, multi-cultural eating options, iconic destinations such as Greville Records, the Greville St Bookstore, bars, clubs and of course Dan Murphy’s.

All credit goes out to director Christian David Cordeaux @ First Light Films, the Winston Giles Orchestra for their original soundtrack, Matt Knipe @ mediaplay for helping us find Winston and our good friends with the chopper.

Please enjoy “Who’s FRANk?”

*Updated to IAB version

I am wondering how long it will take for brands to understand the enormous power of the web (if used correctly). Take the next president of the US for example. When Obama wins it will represent a tipping point. Take a look at his website, fully pimped with a blog, digg, twitter, myspace, facebook, linkedin and even a mobile application.

Try thinking about your google results as user touch points. If you have only a website you only have one touch point so having a page in every major online community will not only help you get in touch with your audience it will also allow you to have the first page of google all to yourself.

No surprise that users find it so easy to support him. This song & video is featuring a star cast, by will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speech. It has more than 5 million views on youtube.

We’ve just launched a campaign for i-mate. It’s called The Ultimate Escape:

The Ultimate Escape is a five day experiment where five strangers, situated in a Byron Bay villa will be collaborating with their i-mates to promote the concept of working out of the office. During their time in the villa they will keep doing their work, create content and learn what it takes to work remotely. They will also try to create a national profile for working smarter and convince organisations and employees that you can work out of the office and remain highly productive. We are currently looking for applicants to go to the villa for 5 days in the week starting 31 March. We’ll look after all flights, accommodation & catering costs. All you need to do is continue with your normal working week, and enjoy the experience. So, if you think you’re the right person for the job, send us your stuff: apply@theultimateescape.com

That’s right. All you need to do is click on the polar bear and have something worth writing about*. The first post on our blog from a non FRANk staff ** will get Seth Godin’s latest book: Meatball Sundae***. I’m just about to finish reading it and it’s definitely worth a post!

*This is a skill based competition and luck got nothing to do with it. **FRANk employees and family members are not allowed to participate in this promotion. ***Photo for illustration purpose only, real book may or may not have a different cover. Content of book still the same.

Web 2.0 is now used by everyone to sell their online proposition and many tried to explain what it really means. What I believe is important to understand in our industry is that it’s only worth mentioning if you’re actually doing web2.0 stuff in house.
So, do you offer web2.0solutions to clients? Do you blog? Do you twitter? flickr? Tube? Tagg? Share? Dig? do you use an RSS reader? As a client, will you let someone who never blogged before give you advise about blogging?Will you let someone without a facebook profile build your social network application? Years ago advertising agencies didn’t need to advertise themselves. It was clear that what they do works. But online is a different ball game.
If you’re doing it - you understand it and this is valuable.
If you’re just talking about it…well… it’s cheap.

 Nature continues to take a bashing as dead Christmas trees and towers of yellow pages litter the landscape. The tower in our photo has been teetering outside our building for over two weeks, eagerly rejected by the nine businesses within.

The yellow pages site intros with “For decades, the Yellow™ Directory has been bringing buyers and sellers together. A Yellow™ Directory is readily available to people in virtually every home and business across Australia. It is the most used source of buying information when people are looking for suppliers of products and services.” The source for this insight is independent research which took place across Oct’98-Sep’99!! me thinks times are a changin’.

Anyone with no online access (now approx 17% Australian’s down from 95% in 2001, source Nielsen) may choose to op-in to receive their annual volumes but the rest of us might chose to opt-out, given the choice that is.

With Sensis starting to produce great new products such as the soon to be re-launched whereis let’s have an opt-out option for some of their less vibrant products. With approx. 5 million copies being distributed each year, some with over 3,000 pages we roughly calculate that we’re talking about 7 billion pages all up. If say 50% of us opt-out then hello we just saved 3.5 billion pages from being sucked out of the environment.

Let your conscience do the talking.