FRANKthoughts

The Bill & Jerry thing is a bit weird. It is certainly not what we thought it will be - which is a good thing. We are so used to “shove it up your throat” ads that we don’t know what to think when someone, instead of shouting “buy my keyboard”, is giving us free entertainment.

When Seinfeld started most of us didn’t get it. People asked “Why would you watch a show about nothing?” and thought that “this guy Seinfeld isn’t funny”. A few episodes later, when you get used to the humor, the characters and the nothingness, you realised you actually enjoy it.It became funny.

Here is the thing. I enjoyed watching the last episode. oops, is it an episode? I thought this should be an ad. There’s lies the beauty. This is not a regular ad. It isn’t what we used to get. Microsoft is breaking new ground. (I don’t get why Adrants actually want this to sell them stuff? do we actually like ads???) With a 300,000 million budget Microsoft dont need to try and sell me stuff. They just need to warm me up to the brand. What do you think?

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Next week I’ve been invited to run my user centric workshop (2001 views) at the Marketing2.0 and beyond conference in Sydney. It’s the second time I’m running this workshop so I have a few new things to talk about. Should be interesting. If you’re in the area twitt to say hello and maybe we can catch up for a drink. (Thanks to woordenaar for the great photo under creative commons)

Apparently web start ups are sooo hot right now, Hollywood actors are making a career move and taking over (thanks Dave). One of these actors is Ashton Kutcher with his “interactive video site” Blahgirls.com. I couldn’t really see how this site is an “interactive video site” and not a celebrity gossip blog with a social community element for 12 year old girls. Isn’t the entire web “interactive”? and the fact you have 2 videos on a page doesn’t make the entire site a “video site”. Moving on, the content is exactly what every LA girl needs, celebrating shallowness with sex references and pimp language . Learning from Ashton, the coolest thing you can call a tween girl is “whore”. I presume that “slut” and “bitch” will follow soon, maybe with some head job instructions. Ok, I’m trying not to be old and prudish but blahgirls smells like the “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset” Paris Hilton SouthPark episode. Thanks Kutcher for making this episode a reality.

Gary Vaynerchuk has a long history with webtv. His winelibrary.tv got him into shows like Conan O’brien and Nightline. He was mentioned in USA today but still thinks there is a massive gap between what can be done online and the mainstream take up. Watch his reaction here. If you’re a brand manager please take notice. Brands will have their own channels online. Some will have their own content team.  Some will find other solutions. But every single brand will have to go there sooner or later. Here’s how TubeMogul is thinking about the future linking brands and content creators: TubeMogul marketplace.

On Sunday 31.08.08 myself and a million other runners in 25 countries participated in a 10k run organised by NIKE+. NIKE+ started with a product - A small chip in your shoe that talks to your ipod nano, tracking your distance, time, pace and calories burned. The product led itself to a community of runners with NIKE offers support, tools and coaching.

Nike plus is a business/product/marketing solution that proves you can achieve great results with an holistic cross business approach. NIKE is so good at that, building an experience that extends marketing buzz words, leaving you searching for new ones to describe it. All elements work seamlessly together supporting one strong mantra: help the participants kick ass.

This is how I felt and my feelings, memories and experience were brought to me by NIKE. How strong is this bond? Wondering how this whole thing came to life (going back to some behind the scenes boardroom) I find it hard to believe it started from a strategy line like: “we want to sell more shoes”. I believe the single thought that started this project was more in the line of: “how can we make our users happy?”. Nike proves that putting your users in front of the bottom line will pay dividends.

Being part of the human race made me think again about the power of brands.

This time Nike pulled off the world’s biggest race. What will they just do next? Here is one answer:

Finally got a chance to go through my favorite blogs and thought it will be nice to start sharing some links I’m deliciousing. I’ll try to do it every Friday and keep it short and sweet. So, here we go: Design, art & usability all play a part in designer Bas Groenendaal work. This designer has hit TED with his new kid focused camera. make sure to watch his Mars + Nietzsche vending machine! The school of life - A new cultural enterprise offering intelligent instruction on how to lead a fulfilled life and how Mozilla  figuring out our semantic lives with Ubiquity.
Have a great weekend!

A brand is my gut feeling about a product, a service or an entity. Branding is all about creating an emotional connection with people. This is important in every touch point with your users, especially when you’re talking. How do you think a customer feel about your brand after an unpleasant chat with your “customer care” person? (One of my good friends just had an unbelievably bad experience with Telstra and yes, he told all his friends about it).

Let’s take a quick side step to the world of robotics where robots are starting to connect with people on an emotional level - please check out “Heart Robot” to be blown away by some of these emotionally evolved robots. After watching this I was wondering what it’s going to be like having a robot as your customer service person.  On the positive side they can work 24 hours a day, never need coffee and never get cranky with a customer.  On the negative side they wont know when to bend the rules for a special client, exceed expectations or deal with a complaint.

Just a sec…when was the last time a customer care person slightly bent the rules for your sick mother, exceeded your expectations or calmed you down in a nice way? Unfortunately most customer service representatives are still trained to act like robots. How does this affect your brand emotional intelligence?

Thanks to MAKEmag for the Heart Robot post.

You all probably get Adrants but I couldn’t resist posting this beast here. This has to be one of the coolest vehicles ever created.

From Adrants: “To call attention to Nike’s sponsorship of the AST Dew Tour, Hub Strategy, which put together a concepting team consisting of an architect, an industrial designer, a planner, a graphic designer and a copywriter. The result? A tricked out extreme vehicle complete with skate ramp, wake board tower, sirk rack, skateboard rails, BMX racks, a camper and, of course, iPod goodness.”

This ticks so many marketing buzz word boxes: it’s guerrilla, brand utility, sponsorship, branded entertainment and a mashup. Whatever we decide to call it - it delivers a unique and unforgettable experience. Even if you’re just looking at it.

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.

From the youtube profile: “Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. More about Randy here.”