be your digital best / digital marketing philippines

The Storefront: A role for social media

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:19:00 +0000

As far as consumer experience goes, brands with brick & mortar establishments have a huge advantage. Shaping a consumer experience is much easier when a brand has an entire space can do the talking: Jamba Juice is about easygoing health, Nespresso for serious coffee drinkers. Benefit is a fun make-up brand, Mac more glam. Besides marketing and packaging, a storefront is a way to immediately tell consumers what to expect from a brand. Is it homey and inviting? Minimalist and serious? Or is it for specialists?

When it comes to RTD beverages or drugstore cosmetics, all the branding happens on the packaging. Advertising sets the mood, but when touchpoints are across disparate spaces, it is more difficult to give consumers a feel of the experience we want attached to the brand. POS might help but these materials are dedicated more to functional messaging that seems to take precedence. Advertising may not hit everyone, and when there is only thirty seconds or 60-by-40 feet to tell a story, it is difficult to set the mood.

So especially for FMCG's who lack a physical place to spell out their brand feel and values, social media can play this role.

2011

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:38:00 +0000

This was a crazy year.

As always, a learning year.

So much happened that it has been difficult to process as they happen.

But, good stuff.

We got lots of great ideas approved. And got clients to learn that good stuff takes quite some time to figure out, think up and produce. We brought one client into digital listening. One of my strategy ideas was featured at the Ad Congress. Even if I wasn't directly involved, I was proud to watch several of our works go viral. One of our fanpages hit a million fans.

This was an epic year, better than I've had in the six years I've been doing digital.

The work is not, is never, done. There is so much more to do, always so much more to learn. But a few things that became clear to me this year, that helped me navigate the crazy space that is digital:
Never think you've figured it out, but never stop trying to understand what is going on. Digital work is team work, and the best work that gets produced is by the people you work closest and most honestly with. Learn the old school to make sense of the new. Try everything with a mind set to Play. Bring new people into the fold but their real learning will be by doing. Always ask Why, Why Not, Who Cares, What Now. Tell people what to do. Try to see the bigger picture. Remember that nobody has figured it out, that we are writing the rules together, and/but while nobody has figured it out rules are meant to be broken.

With this in mind, and a new agenda for 2012, the new year sounds quite exciting.

Thinking of Experience & Engagement Planning

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:15:00 +0000

Not that you can plan for every reaction, but the idea of direction, action, reaction. The dynamic flow of information.

Planning detour

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:26:00 +0000

I often wonder how I got here. Planning was a detour within advertising, one I never even thought of pursuing. When I took advertising in college talked mostly about Accounts and Creatives. Planning was never really discussed, and if it was it didn't make an impact on me.

I was assigned to a big project with working our head of Planning during my first month in advertising. During a cab rides back from a client's office, he told me he thought I had a "planning brain" and asked if I'd ever considered working in that group. The honest answer was no.

I was strictly on the digital path and nothing was going to derail me, certainly not a group called "Strategic Planning" that wasn't on my radar. I wonder what would have happened if I'd known what he was talking about and/or if I'd taken him seriously. That was almost five years ago. And now I'm here. How do things happen?

ADVERTISING + EXPERIENCE

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:22:00 +0000

why Brands need to SAY + DO

HEINEKEN LIGHT STRATEGY: “Rather than settling for constantly mediocre instances and routines, the campaign celebrates consumers and their 'occasionally perfect' experiences. While every occasion is not right for Heineken Light, the beer is a perfect fit for those situations that call for something a little more unique, special and upscale.” (via)

ADVERTISING

EXPERIENCE

Getting people to experience what we want our brands to stand for is most meaningful in the real world. But because of digital media we can now share activations and real-world goodness the whole world over.

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 02:37:00 +0000

Just realized that this image could well be mistaken for the Digital Sh*t.
But this conference was quite the opposite!

Two days of intense information overload. Still absorbing and thinking through all that was said and tweeted. But will post something soon!

TADD GADDUANG for Brand Ambassador! (slash endorser)

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:29:00 +0000

(Not exactly digital except in the channel I'm using to campaign :P)

Tadd Gadduang, who I follow and tweet regularly at @D8Tadd, is one of the top four finalists on So You Think You Can Dance (in case you aren't so familiar, here's my quick intro ). And he's Filipino!

He is awesome! On a show that gets dancers to stay fabulous even outside their comfort zones, he has somehow conquered almost every style thrown at him. Even if he is a B-boy (breaker), he is able to do so many styles brilliantly.

Similar to what I wrote for also-awesome-Pinoy Marko (yes the top two guys in the SYTYCD finale are Filipino!), I believe that it is only a matter of time before some brand brings this guy over as an endorser and I will be damned if it is not the agency I work for because I want to meet him! So people at that collaborative place were I work, please listen up.

See him in action & why he's awesome:

Tadd's Broadway by Spencer Liff
(with Melanie)

Tadd's Contepmorary by Travis Wall
(with Jordan)

Tadd's Hip-Hop by Nappytabs
(with Jordan)

Tadd's Contemporaryby Sonya Tayeh
(with Ellenore, who is also part Pinoy!)

Tadd's Viennese Waltzby Jean-Marc Genereux
(with Ellenore, who is also part Pinoy!)

Also, there's a forum dedicated to his abs ("The Official Keep Your Shirt Off, Tadd Fanclub"). Yes, he can dance, he's super cute and he's cut to death. He also loves the Philippines - at every elimination episode, Tadd has worn a Filipino shirt :)

Yes? Come on! He's cute, he's an awesome & passionate dancer and he's so genuine! TADD FOR BRAND AMBASSADOR!

(In case anybody from outside my agency reads this and brings him over, PLEASE Twitter me and let me meet him!!!!)

MARKO GERMAR for Brand Ambassador!

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:01:00 +0000

(Not digital except in the channel I'm using to campaign :P)

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will likely have seen my messages to @D8Marko. That is Marko Germar - a pure Pinoy who is vying for the top spot on reality show So You Think You Can Dance (in case you aren't so familiar, here's my quick intro).

Marko has been a frontrunner from the beginning. He and partner Melanie started the season with a Travis Wall contemporary routine. The judges gave the pair a standing ovation and the rest was history!

As much as I love this show, I usually save SYTYCD posts for my non-digital personal blog on Tumblr. But now I have a marketing-related issue so I'm only too happy to have an excuse to post something Marko- or SYTYCD-related on this blog!
I believe that it is only a matter of time before some brand brings this guy over as an endorser and I will be damned if it is not the agency I work for because I want to meet him! So people at that collaborative place were I work, please listen up.

See why he's awesome:

Marko's HipHop by Nappytabs
(with Melanie)
MY FAVORITE!

Marko's Jazz by Sonya Tayeh
(with Caitlynn)

Marko's Contemporary by Sonya Tayeh
(with Allison)
Not my favorite but his mom is so cute! And he made Gaga cry!

Marko's Samba by Jason Gilkison
(with Chelsie)

Marko's Contemporary by Travis Wall
(with Melanie)
Their first routine. The judges gave them a standing ovation!

Marko's Jazz by Ray Lapatan
(with Melanie)

Marko's Contemporary by Dee Caspary
(with Melanie)
My second favorite routine :)

Yes? Come on! He's cute, he's an awesome & passionate dancer and he's so genuine! And guess what - he couldn't afford to take dance classes all the time so he found videos on YouTube and learned off the internet! MARKO GERMAR FOR BRAND AMBASSADOR!

(In case anybody from outside my agency reads this and brings him over, PLEASE Twitter me and let me meet him!!!!)

Notes on So You Think You Can Dance

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:22:00 +0000

(This isn't digital but I love this show and need to write this as a reference for my next two pieces.)

So You Think You Can Dance is one of my favorite shows. Even if I have zero dance background (not counting my ballet classes as a kid), I love this show. Every (U.S.) summer, I rush home every Thursday night to watch the latest episode. I avoid Twitter on Friday mornings so that I won't see who was eliminated. I LOVE THIS SHOW.

For those of you who haven't had the immense pleasure yet of watching the show, So You Think You Can Dance, it is a reality show on the Fox network, sister to much more popular reality competition American Idol. While AI has infinitely more viewers and fans, SYTYCD is a far better show. The contestants train for years (whether in formal classes or hmm... on the streets? like if you're a hip-hop dancer?) and by the time they get on the show they are experts at their own style - contemporary, jazz, ballroom, Latin, Broadway, etc. The challenge every week is to be able to master a range of styles outside of their own. Contemporary dancers are asked to do hip-hop, hip-hop dancers are asked to do ballroom, and they all get weird styles like African jazz or Bollywood, and the point is to shine no matter what style.

The season starts with auditions all over the U.S. where dancers who make the cut get a ticket to Vegas. The judges have to feel that dancers are (a) awesome at their own style, and (b) have enough talent to possibly be awesome at other styles as well. The dancers all get flown to Vegas where they are tested in all the main styles (usually hip-hop, ballroom, Broadway and contemporary). The judges cut after each round and sometimes dancers are asked to "dance for your life" - when they've done badly at a certain style the judges are allowed to ask them to dance a solo in their own style to remind the judges of their potential and why they're still being considered. It's brutal!

The judges choose a Top 20 - ten boys and ten girls who are all partnered up. Partnership is key on the show - they always compete in pairs. The show has played with a lot of formulas regarding how people get mixed and matched but here's what usually happens: guys and girls get paired up and stick with their partners for the first five rounds. The remaining Top 10 are all switched around after that randomly with each other. SYTYCD tried one season (7) where they only got ten dancers at the start and they were randomly paired up with an "All-Star", a contestant from a previous season (who I'm assuming has done well enough commercially to be called an All-Star). This season partners stay together for the first five weeks, then get switched around with All-Stars and each other after they make the Top 10.

There are two mainstay judges: the usually awesome Nigel Lythgoe (who is also the executive producer), who is also executive producer of AI and the fabulously loud Mary Murphy. Nigel used to do ballroom and tap, Mary is a ballroom vet. They usually get one or two choreographers to judge as guests but this year they've done away with choreographers-as-guests and have started inviting actors and directors instead who have a dance background or who love the show.

Choreographers play a key role on the show, as they engineer all of the dance numbers. It seems like Nigel gives them free range to do whatever they want, which can end up a good or bad thing. But the show has a set of mainstay choreographers - Napoleon & Tabitha for hip-hop, Mia Michaels, Stacey Tookey & (former contestant!) Travis Wall for contemporary, Sonya Tayeh for jazz, etc. They add to the range of personalities on the show and long-time viewers have gotten to know the choreographers through their work across the seasons. (Nappytabs remains my favorite!)

At the end of the season, America votes and the show crowns the winner as "America's favorite dancer". I've been watching the show since Season 4 (when I spent a summer with my tita and cousins in LA who love the show, we're now on Season 8), and the technically best dancers rarely win. Season 4 - I think that contemporary dancer Katee was the best but hip-hop guys Twitch and Joshua made the Top 2, with Joshua as the winner. Season 5 - Brandon was certainly better but America chose Jeanine (both contemporary). Season 6 - contemporary dancer Jakob was insanely amazing but krumper Russell won. In earlier seasons Nigel seemed to be proud that America voted for their favorite, or the dancers with the most personality. But in more recent seasons he seems to have gotten very unhappy about the technically best dancers not winning and sometimes getting eliminated way before the finale.

This season has been amazing. My favorite dancers, Tadd and Marko, have made it to the finale! I've been upset about Nigel pimping out his favorites this season (ugh RYAN) and seeming to favor the female dancers, but I am still hoping that Marko or Tadd will come through. Probably Marko.

But why did I write this lengthy piece? I have a hidden (or not-so-hidden?) agenda.

TV Hashtags, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 00:16:00 +0000

TV shows use hastags to organize real-time word-of-mouth about new shows and new seasons.

(Click for TV Hashtags, Part 1)

Suits, a brilliant new legal show on the USA network, leads viewers to Twitter with a question + hashtag. In an episode where junior associate Mike decides to keep something from boss Harvey, the show asks "Have you ever lied to your boss?" and indicates #suits as the hashtag.

Project Runway, back for its ninth season, is inviting viewers to vote for their favorite contestants using hashtags. At the end of the season the show will award a Fan Favorite based on Twitter hashtag votes.

Hashtags can be pretty messy - I'm certainly guilty of making up my own hashtags even if I don't know (or care) if anyone else is using them. But mainstream media is one way to provide the common keyword that consolidates and unites conversastion on Twitter.

clueless in advertising?

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:09:00 +0000

I was an ad agency intern in 2004. Back when I thought I wanted to be a designer. Before I had a stint in PR, an affair with account management, a brush with digital. When advertising meant TV+Radio+Print and the last stop on the project checklist was signing FA off or sending tapes to the stations. When I thought agencies were made up of Suits and Creatives (no concept of planning). When, as I would leave at 5 pm, creatives would tell me the day was just beginning. When advertising seemed like the ultimate playground.

Some things will never be the same. Some things will never change.

When I was a very impressionable intern, a very kind art director lent me a book that someone else had given him when he was thinking of getting into advertising.

It excited me because it was well designed, and because he was my intern crush. Cut to today and I've been at the same agency, pretty much, for almost five years. So even if this book only rates with two stars on Amazon, I think it was pretty effective.

I'm working with an intern now and I think I will pass it on to her. I wonder what she'll take out of it, if she will be as excited as I was when I first felt the agency buzz.

MMDA Traffic Navigator

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 05:36:00 +0000

MMDA & TV5 launch Philippines' first digital traffic map

I love transit maps! I get extremely excited when I see a well-designed information graphic, and transit maps are at the top of my list because of their crazy utility. It can't be easy to design just one image that effectively communicates so much inter-related information at the same time - where each train goes, what routes are available to get somewhere, how near each station is to where you're going, where you can get on or off, whether or not each line runs all day.

As a blueprint for how people navigate through a city, a transit map also says something about that city's identity. When I travel to a new place, a well-designed transit map tells me whether or not the local government cares enough about its commuters to give structure to this crucial daily activity. This of course assumes that transportation systems work at all and were strategized properly so that they can now be communicated in an efficient way that allows even new users can easily get on board.

My favorite transit map is of New York, because it is New York's! But I like this map especially because it anchors the different transit points or subway stations over the actual city map so you know where each stop is, in relation to the whole city.

Then you can immediately tell things like how near or far each station is from the another. What options you have in terms of subway lines if you want to go to, say Midtown East or the Upper West Side.

Other maps like London's, Beijing's and I think even Tokyo's, are cleaner in terms of design. But because but elements are not anchored on an actual map you'd have to look at another (actual map) to figure out where you are once you leave the station.

I've never seen a map for Metro Manila that would really be useful to commuters or drivers but last week the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) launched the Philippines' first digital transit map. The Traffic Navigator helps citizens easily get traffic readings from key points all over the city.

THIS IS AWESOME.
I love that a government unit in the Philippines is using digital as a platform to make services and utilities! MMDA started off with a very helpful Twitter account that consolidates traffic updates. Now they've taken it a step further.

How it works. The site maps five "Lines" - EDSA, Quezon Ave., Espana, C5, Roxas Blvd and SLEX. These main roads are broken up into the areas that each road hits. The icon for each area indicates the level of traffic going Northbound or Southbound. Red for heavy, Yellow for moderate and Green for light. At a glance, users can tell the state of traffic at a specific place or all over the Metro.

Navigation. The site offers different ways to filter the information. Users can select to see just Northbound or Southbound traffic icons. Besides the main veiw (screenshot above), users can opt to see the list of areas covered in each line or an overlay of the traffic updates on Google Maps.

Design. Clean, clear and easy to understand. Very pretty!

Beta. When they get to the site, users are immediately alerted that this service is still on beta and not yet updated 24/7. (Content is only updated between 10am and 6pm.) But to inform the MMDA of any suggestions or bugs, users are invited to e-mail mmdatrafficnavigator@interaksyon.com.

Learning Opportunity. I would love to find out who came up with this, who designed it and the kind of content management strategy they're putting in effect to make sure updates are done regularly and accurately. I also wonder what kind of analytics they have in place and how they are going to optimize performance based on those numbers.

When I showed it to a friend in the office, he remarked that Pinoys aren't ready for stuff like this yet. Maybe he's right. But as we see leading government institutions thinking critically about using digital to find ways to be of service, the more we ourselves may learn to include utility-based thinking in our everyday lives. Thanks, @MMDA!

to the backchannel!

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sat, 28 May 2011 03:14:00 +0000

(Or, TV Hashtags, Part 1)

TV shows use hashtags to organize real-time word-of-mouth about finale episodes.

On Vampire Diaries, fans were invited to talk about the show on Twitter with a designated hashtag. (No, I am not ashamed of my keen interest in shows that feature high school / college students like Vampire or now-defunct Greek.) In this case #Klaus, the villain of the season. It makes me wonder if the writers were asked to select a name for the character that would be unique to and associated with the show. (Past villains like Katherine or Elijah don't really have unique names.)

The (pretty awesome) Fringe finale invited fans to tag their tweets with the show title.

As viewers start to shift behavior to watching TV at their preferred time (TiVo) and in their preferred format (online), one of the biggest challenges facing TV networks in the US is adding value to the broadcast experience. Is Twitter the fix?

Watching live TV in the US has become a two-screen activity for some, where the show airs on television and the user follows or participates in the real-time commentary on Twitter. It gives an interesting perspective into other veiwers' and fans' reactions at the same time you are all watching.

I don't think this will be a problem for a long time in the Philippines but it would be interesting to take some of the experiments in real-time commentary to our own viewing experiences: Should the UAAP flash a hashtag on screen as the series unfolds? Should controversial print or TV ads invite reactions by including a hashtag in the material? Maybe concert tickets should invite users to tweet under the same #justinbieberph to document reactions to the show.

Hashtags are commonly used in the Philippines, but seemingly spur-of-the-moment. During Ondoy people all seemed to come up with their own tags. Can't wait to see which brand or event dictates the tag to unite commenters under one Twitter thread.

(Click for TV Hashtags, Part 2)

ways of seeing: wristwatches

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 06:17:00 +0000

a curated digital post

I've always had a wristwatch, more for style than for function; the face of my watch is a long rectangle so spacing is weird between the X and Y axis. Sometimes I can't be certain whether my watch is telling me it is 10 or 11. To be sure, I check my phone.

With the onslaught of handheld digital devices that hold the time, what happens to the wristwatch?
THREE PERSPECTIVES:

says THE ATLANTIC

Such displays of time on mobile devices [and apps] go beyond the ticktock of the grandfather clock and the insistent pulse of the wristwatch, no longer pointing at one moment but indicating all the hours at once.

says THE CLASS OF 2014

...They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

says LUNCHBREATH

a digital learning adventure

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:00:00 +0000

On my birthday last year I had just flown into the US to start studies in digital marketing.

New York is a crazy beautiful city and was an awesome backdrop to the learning adventure I started in 2010. The city felt like a long-lost home and was home indeed for the first three-or-so months of my 27th year.

I had hit a stumbling block in digital and had decided that I wanted to learn the rules from someone else (experts?) before trying to figure out how to break them at work. I headed to New York University to learn from "the best" with a sideline at MRM Worldwide, New York.

Silly me - there are no real rules. Funny that I had to go all the way to the first, very mature-marketed, world to learn that? But it confirmed that I wasn't the only clueless person in digital marketing. What then?

I got a happy illumination on a seemingly unconnected trip to the Museum of Natural History. I saw a caption beside their gigantic blue whale that said that, to this day, only 5% of the ocean has ever been explored. It made me happy to imagine that if such a small part of a bounded space has been discovered by man, how much more there is for us to express coming from the limitless space of ideas and creativity.

Coming back after months of art, music, theater, avenues, blocks, burgers, food trucks, footseps, free Wi-Fi, subways, trains, classes, work days and learning that I couldn't even process, I was grounded in the thought that ideas, especially digital ideas, can still break new ground.

I hit reset on this blog, in how I thought it could help me keep processing this crazy space, and headed home.

No sooner had I gotten back to work when I shifted gears and ended up in Planning. How, who knew? I hadn't even realized as a student that this discipline existed. What a blessing, the learning adventure of my 27th year continued.

A new building, new team, new boss, new discipline. Hello one-pagers. Hello mental blocks. Hello duh moments (and people haha). Hello feeling like a lost strategist with no semblance of a plan. Many, many self deprecating moments. Overwhelmed-ness, yesterday, corrected by.

But fast forward nine months, a gazillion pitches, new friends, new creative buddies, a handful of pretty decks and four shiny new digital AOR's. There is no good way to summarize the insane learning that I've been so lucky to experience in this last year.

But a happy thought - a note received from the Post Office on the day I turned 28. Warning me of a possible customs inspection but calling me to pick up a package.

Almost one year to the day after I started my year of digital learning, a symbol for a milestone of a year that I will never forget.

- Bea Atienza,
*professionally certified digital media marketer*

are we listening?: brands & trust online

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:03:00 +0000

A think piece I worked on over the weekend on brands and trust online. Are we listening?

Brands & Trust Online

View more presentations from Bea Atienza.

How about an offering for Pancake Extremists?

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:04:00 +0000


photo by Roslyn in Starfish Island	via PhotoRee

At Pancake House one morning recently I ordered two chocolate chip pancakes. (In case you're interested, I usually order three except in this case the pancakes were preceded by tapa and rice and therefore as my breakfast dessert I only needed two pieces.)

My dish arrived and I proceeded to set aside the peanut butter and slather the entire serving of butter on the top and bottom (both) pieces.

And then it occurred to me that Pancake House serves the same amount of butter regardless of whether you order two pieces, three pieces or a waffle.

This was disturbing to me because, if you are serious about your pancakes then you must also have some long-standing belief as to the proper butter-to-pancake ratio. In the case of Panacke House, spreading all, or half on X number of pieces. And the maximum amount of butter you would put on two would definitely not be the same as the maximum amount you would put on three, or on a waffle.

And then it occurred to me that if I were Panacke House, I would delegate my next branch to Pancake Extremists. Instead of yet-another generic branch like all the dozens of branches I already have, an entire restaurant for people who have serious respect and belief for how to serve, eat and enjoy their pancakes.

Nothing but pancakes.
No rib-eye, lemon chicken, yogurt.
No omelette.
Sorry, no pan fried chicken or tacos.
Maybe country sausage and bacon.

And serious, extreme Pancakes.
Serious Stacks.
Serious Syrup.
Serious Butter, serious pancake-to-butter ratios.
A Pancake Enjoyment Manifesto.

The Classics.
Chocolate Chip,
Walnut Banana,
Peach,
Etc.

+ Experiments.
Green tea pancake?
Olive oil pancake?
Queso de bola bibingka pancake?
Crepe pancake?

Something new, only for serious Pancake Extremists.

Sort of like the Icecreamists.

Wouldn't it be cool if more established brands had an extreme, hard-core, serious variant, branch or offering?

This is where my thinking gets sort of fuzzy. But this isn't about creating advocates. This would be about finding people who take consuming our brand to the next level, who consider it a science (see afore mentioned panacke-to-butter ratio). Not that we would dictate rules, maybe everybody would get to share their own. As I said the idea gets fuzzy at this point.

But wouldn't it be cool if you could participate in stores for -

Fully Booked Nerds,
Charles & Keith Heels,
Muji Minimalists,
Royce Purists,
Red Ribbon Radicals,
Chippy Connoisseurs,
National School Supply Addicts???

judge a book by its cover

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:34:00 +0000

I am guilty. Maybe metaphorically and definitely book-store-ically.

Yes I would (and did) buy this over...

*Insert moral-of-the-story here: when Branding & Design are inspired by contexts and points-in-time*

social media on tv

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 15:15:00 +0000

I am a TV nut. I watch about fifteen shows a week :P

Over the current season social media seems to have gone extra American TV mainstream. This post is going to be a running list of social media mentions on my favorite shows.

Gossip Girl: Juliet can't afford dresses so she gets her wardrobe from Rent the Runway
Grey's Anatomy: Twitter in the OR
Big Bang Theory:
The Good Wife: Take on Social Network (among others, to follow)

Facebook is the new WWW

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:29:00 +0000

Last week I noticed that the Philippines had become the fifth most represented country on Facebook, with (then) just under 21 million Pinoys registered. I just checked again and less than a week later, that number has ballooned to 21.7 million.

That constitutes 24% of the total Philippine population. Not bad, especially for just one URL.

These staggering numbers have made Facebook a go-to channel for many brands and, ahem, ad agency strategic planners. Why not? We can reach a captive, engaged market and can geo- and age-target our drive-to-page materials. Even better, when consumers like our content, they can share them on their Walls and elicit an exponential number of eyeballs and views.

But as obvious as Facebook seems to have become as a standard digital channel recommendation, a new barrier seems to be emerging: Are brands that get on Facebook only now already too late in the game? Do they risk appearing like me-too's? Worse, will agencies that recommend branded Facebook pages appear uninsightful and lazy?

After all our marketing culture is fond of “owning” things – colors, seasons, occasions, time slots, entire mediums. I once got a brief that demanded a strategy that would allow our brand to “own the Internet”. (Not a joke!) Who owns Facebook, and if we can’t own it then should we even bother?

The answer is yes.

A few years ago we recommended branded web presence through websites that opened with WWW. All that has changed is that now we are recommending branded web presence through pages that open with FACEBOOK.COM.

In that sense we just need to re-frame our thinking and look at Facebook as a microcosm of the larger web. We had websites once but now that everybody is on Facebook, doesn't it make sense that we build a presence there?

What we like about this particular social network –

Built-in community-building features

What: Users can easily like a brand page and individual pieces of content or share their own.
Where else you could get it: Your web developer can tell you how long it would take (very) to design a website that would duplicate the level of community engagement that already exists Facebook. And how much it would cost! (A lot.)

A captive audience

What: 21 million Pinoys & counting, who regularly visit. According to the Facebook fact sheet, 50% of their active users log in on any given day. One study claims that users view an average of 22 pages per visit. The best part? Users can immediately click on anything they find interesting.
Where else you could get it: On TV or radio? OOH? Minus the click. Your media agency can give you more information.

Share-ability

What: Users can easily share content they find interesting – today the Cebu Pacific flight attendants, tomorrow the “California Girls” balikbayans who had too much Pinoy food (“Katy my lady, gutom ka na baby?”). Never 100% sure, but definitely viral potential.
Where else you could get it: Through bloggers and YouTube, maybe Twitter. Check with your Digital Influence consultant. But I don’t think you could say that something has “gone viral” if it hasn’t passed through Facebook.

Good Pages abound! (Will update with an actual list shortly/eventually.)

What we need to avoid –

The trick is not to rest on Facebook’s community features. A wall and an information page won’t do anything for a brand without regularly updated content and conversation. Just as if we were planning a brand website we need to create a reason that anyone would care to visit our (profile) page.

Whether on Facebook or not, consumers will look for a compelling reason to engage with us – something useful, entertaining or informational. That bit of digital strategy hasn't changed, only the entry url – from www.YOURBRAND.com to facebook.com/YOURBRAND. This might sound obvious but it recently helped me open the minds of a few clients. Maybe this kind of explanation can help you, too.

i'm on bloglovin

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 02:40:00 +0000

Follow my blog with bloglovin

fashion by invitation

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:55:00 +0000

First group buying, now invitation-only online fashion

Wrote about the potential of group buying to take off in the Philippines right before the launch of local services Cash Cash Pinoy and Buyanihan. Now there are also Beeconomic (just bought by Groupon) and Deal Grocer, a higher-end version.

Another e-commerce trend that has become popular in the last few years is websites that provide discounted high-end fashion but with invitation-only membership. The most popular US sites are Gilt and Rue La La.

Today saw a friend post about www.ava.ph:

This is the first exclusive high-end fashion website I've seen locally. Given the plethora of online coupon sites popping up there seems to be a market of web-savvy Pinoys who are ready to take their credit cards out and finally use them online. But are we ready for online high fashion?

Will this fly? Let's see. In the meantime, I await my invitation!

feelings about starting work

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:42:00 +0000

Think that 2011 is going to be insanely awesome in many ways, but it's still hard to shift from non-work mode! Give it a few more days.

habits of work and mind for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:59:00 +0000

Think about digital's big ideas
Dedicate time to think, flesh out and write
Reach out in the spirit of the values of the web

no words

noreply@blogger.com (bea) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:17:00 +0000

Trying to sum up sentiments about what was
an insanely, ridiculously amazing 2010,
an impossible task for a year

> that took me to...
New York, Indonesia,
and back home again

+ that installed me even deeper into the advertising world
than I ever knew existed.

+ that gave me...
so many interesting new people to meet,
wonderfully dorky new teammates,
pitch losses and wins,
new office walls to decorate,
cousin trips to comedy nights and soda warehouses,
feeling-dorky cousin quiz nights,
family soccer games and basketball shootouts,
batchmatedly obscure cucumber get-togethers,
plans for The Villages and Turbo Antioch,
rides up and down the 4 train,
happily drunken nights,
late-night rooftop encounters,
dinner conversations across continents,
art in flowers, sculpture and splatters,
music in museums and old theaters,
playlists for subways, plane rides, drive time, sweet dreams,
Kindle books and apps for zombies, maps, birds and frogs,
virtual hand-raising in a real-time classroom,
thinking time during learning time,
lifestream management!,
work, personal, family blogs,
family hours spent on Skype,
turning 4, 27 or 85,
pilgrimages
and prayers answered.

Not nearly enough words
except thanks.

Sent from a toaster