I have to admit, I have been fascinated by the Virtual Good / Social Gaming market lately.  It is something I am going to be thinking / writing about more often in the coming weeks for sure.  In the meantime, here is a great presentation that was recently given at the Virtual Worlds Conference.   Great primer for those new to this space.  [presentation embedded below].

Talk about a presentation getting some nice buzz.  First Fred Wilson posts about this new presentation he just saw and then Henry Blodget writes about the same presentation on Silicon Alley Insider.  Looks like David Gillespie knows how to catch the eye of the right folks in the marketing blog world.

But then again, after taking a look at the presentation myself, I needed to jump on the bandwagon because it really is filled with some great insights.  Hands down my favorite quote is this:

Advertising got really good at speaking in 30 second chunks to a captive audience… Then quickly found most brands had nothing to say on the 31st.

(Note: RSS Readers – Click through to see the embedded presentation below.)

For the past 6 years, Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker has been one of the highlights of the Web 2.0 Summit.  Last year was the first time I saw her presentation in person but every year is a must read report / powerpoint.  This year is no exception as Meeker gives an overview of the economy and then dives deep into why the “Mobile Internet is and will be bigger than most think.”  The full PowerPoint is embedded below and filled more valuable nuggets than I could possibly hope to capture in a summary.  Take the time to read this thing all the way through…it is a must look at report for all Brand Marketers.

Mary Meeker’s Internet Presentation 2009

Are your fans passionate enough about your brand that they would make your ads for you?  If you are Etsy, than the answer is yes thanks to their Handmade Moment contest. I don’t know about you, but if I saw this on TV, I would have never guessed it was “Handmade.”

News came out today of a national marketing campaign that aims to position Cincinnati as “the Silicon Valley of consumer marketing.”  As the Cincinnati Enquirer states, “the work grew out of the Agenda 360 community-wide plan sponsored by the Cincinnati USA Regional chamber, which set as one of its goals the creation of 50,000 jobs by 2020.” In support of that goal, this work will specifically “support entrepreneurial companies in consumer marketing in Cincinnati.”

In this regard, the effort seeks to build on a substantial core of marketing talent already here, drawn by major advertisers such as P&G, Macy’s and Kroger, and organize it, expand it and tell the world about it.  One example of this that is already underway is the Digital Hub Initiative that happened last month here in Cincinnati.

It appears that Augmented Reality is the the latest craze in the media and with marketers.  First, this month’s Fast Company has an article on the subject called “Augmented Reality Is Both a Fad and the Future — Here’s Why.” (note: the below graphic comes that article).  And then this morning I get an email from Kevin Dugan about an interesting new AR campaign called “Be Transformed in 3-D” that was created by his client Meijer.

Apparently AR is the latest “flavor of the day” as Jonathan Sackett, the Martin Agency’s chief digital officer, put it in the Fast Company article.  But there might be something more there.

Case in point, up until now, I have been as negative about AR as anyone out there.  But the reason was because I didn’t see an everyday / every person use until now.  My viewpoint first started to change with Yelp’s new Monocle feature (profiled in the Fast Company article).  And if further changed when I saw this use by Meijer promotion.

With Yelp, it answered the need for an “everyday” example because it really was about making the Yelp service more useful.

Meijer on the hand came up with the “every person” example.  You see, the Meijer AR program has a very short lifespan through Halloween.  But the upside is that they made something everyone could try.  You dont have to have a fancy iPhone 3Gs…just a simple webcam that is more and more standard these days.  As Dugan points out, the program is a lot like Office Max’s Elf Yourself and we all know how mainstream that think went.

With these two examples, I’m starting to see some real potential in AR.  But more importantly, I’m starting to see the novelty wear off as marketers  find real ways to leverage the technology to add value (and maybe even a little meaning) to consumers.

A few weeks back, I wrote a post about the fact that “Marketers need to realize that we are all publishers now.“  One month later, it’s a thought that I cannot seem to get out of my head.

More specifically, I am trying to figure out what the ramifications of that statement are.  After all, as marketers, we are trained in how to create great advertising like a TV or print ad.  In fact, if you started at one of the big CPG companies, you probably have a checklist of what goes into an effective advertisement.

But few of us (if any) are trained to act like publisher.  And by act like a publisher, I mean creating a regular flow of great content that “people will read, watch, listen to or look at for their own enjoyment and want to pass on to their friends.”  Marketers do not have a “checklist” for creating great content…or for that matter, creating a great content website.

So for the past month, I have been paying a lot more attention to the top publisher sites in the hope of uncovering some common threads to what goes into a great content site.  This means I am looking closely at the behaviors of my favorite “publishers” like Huffington Post, Thrillist, Digg, CollegeHumor and just about anything created by Federated Media.

So far, a few things jump out:

• Facebook Connect:  Despite being just over a year old, Facebook Connect is already an essential addition for sites to enable Comments, Sharing, Social Filtering, and Single Sign On.  For instance, since CitySearch implemented Facebook Connect, daily registrations have tripled, 94% of users who write reviews share those reviews back on Facebook, and 70% of their friends who see the review click on it, and travel back to Citysearch.
• Sharing Platforms:  Chas Edwards has a great post that summarizes the importance of sharing platforms like ShareThis.  For instance, online publishers announced that social-media sharing platforms have become bigger sources than Google for referral traffic.  And the visitors that came to the site via shared links were1.5x more likely to convert than visitors that came from other sources including search.
• Integrated Digg Widget – Some call Digg a sharing platform, but I think of it more as a voting platform where consumers decide the best content.   Case in point, the Integrated Digg Widget implemented by Time.com.  This integrated approach increased traffic from Digg to Time by 164% and Time stories now end up on Digg’s homepage more than 100 times a month, up from 55 before the widget integration.  Lesson here is that “less can be more” and if you remind people to vote their opinion, they will.
• The “Golden Triangle” of mobile, social and real-time: Last week, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures called the combination of mobile, social and real-time the “Golden Triangle.”  While I haven’t seen this play out with many Content sites, I think the principle still holds true.
• Get Satisfaction: I admit, I am a bit biased with Get Satisfaction since I know many of their executives.  Nonetheless, I think their platform of “People-Powered Customer Service” is stellar for helping people share ideas, answers and solutions.  I think their Feedback Tab is going to continue to pop up on more and more sites going forward.

Those are just five of the elements that I think would be on the checklist for great Digital Content.  What would you add to the list?  Anything in the realm of Video?  Search?  Mobile?

The buzz around the marketing water cooler this morning is about a report by Lisa Bradner of Forrester entitled “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age.”  In the report, Lisa makes the provocative statement that our industry should change the name “brand manager” to “brand advocate” as a response to the fundamental changes brought about by the digital age.  Further fuel is added to the fire with Ad Age’s story about the report called “Why It’s Time to Do Away With the Brand Manager.”

The Forrester report makes a compelling story and the subsequent Ad Age article adds further proof of why Brand Management is about to undergo its’ biggest change since McElroy wrote his infamous memo in May 1931.

But there is one particular point that I think needs repeating:

We don’t need to get rid of Brand Managers -  we need to “return to marketing as the focus of Brand Management.”

As my colleague Bob Gilbreath points out in the article, marketing needs to be something much more important than “one of the six things a Brand Manager does.”  Or as Bradner states, “So much of [brand managers'] time is subsumed by internal management, and so much of the creative process and planning is outsourced to agencies and other parties… [brand managers] really need to be in charge of the heart and soul of what the brand stands for. It does move you off the generalist track to be more of a pure marketer.”

I could not agree more with that statement.

In fact, this was the entire premise of one of my first posts on Hard Knox Life in April 2008.  At the time, I wrote that:

One of the biggest misinterpretations of brand management is that being a Brand Manager and being a Marketer are one and the same… If you love marketing, devote yourself to being the best marketer in the world and knowing how the world of media and communication are changing.  And if you love running a business/brand, then surround yourself with people that love marketing and are willing to devote the time to being a brilliant marketer.  Just don’t make the mistake of assuming just because you are one, means you are the other.

This same point is as true today as when I wrote that original post.  For the past decade (or longer), Brand Management has been more more about being a generalist and less about being a brilliant marketer.  But that has to change.  When suddenly we are faced with a world with 50 marketing choices instead of 5, we need to have pure marketers who can make sense of the chaos.

That doesn’t mean that we have to get rid of Brand Managers.  But it means that our entire industry needs to re-embrace what it means to be a marketer.

Several weeks ago, I had the honor to write a guest post for the Google CPG Blog.  If you aren’t familiar with this blog, it is a highly recommended read for anyone on the brand or agency side working in CPG.  Below is a repost of my thoughts on Brands and Consumer Collaboration.

Brand Managers have historically been reliant on Consumer Research such as focus groups and surveys to be “in-touch” with consumers. But in this day of 24/7 access to consumer opinions from blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, Brand Managers need a new approach for understanding why people buy their brands. One of the most powerful ways to do so is through Consumer Collaboration. In its most simplistic form, Consumer Collaboration is about monitoring and participating in the conversations around our brands, listening to changing opinions in real-time. It is about tapping into what Google calls the “Database of Consumer Intentions” to gain a new sense of what our consumers are thinking each and every day. In fact, Google is a company making it easy for marketers to be in touch with the “database of intentions” every day through tools like Wonder Wheel, Insights for Search, Blog Search, and YouTube Insights for Video.

But true Consumer Collaboration is about going beyond that, giving marketers a chance to tap into the passion of consumers and collaborate with brand advocates. The world of digital gives CPG Marketers the chance to harness the energy of consumers to build remarkable brands.

In that regard, the need for moving towards a mindset of Consumer Collaboration is driven by three facts:

1. Consumers are sharing their opinions about the brand, with, or without, a Brand Manager’s blessing.
2. Consumers will be heard whether or not companies give them an outlet.
3. The amount of information about our brands (and access to that information) has never been greater.

Today’s Brand Managers must recognize a new approach to move beyond research and instead focus on collaborating with our consumers and your most passionate fans. This means we should invite consumers to collaborate with us to improve our brand. Scott Cook, founder of Intuit and Board Member of P&G, eBay and Amazon calls these “User Contribution Systems.” As Cook pointed out in the Harvard Business Review:

“Every day, millions of people make all kinds of voluntary contributions to companies — from informed opinions to computing resources — that create tremendous value for this firm’s customers and, consequently, for their shareholders.”

This fact has not been lost on CPG Brand Marketers. Whether it is Tide using the services of Get Satisfaction, or Hugo Boss Fragrance tapping into consumer creativity with HugoCreate.com, brands are starting to see the true value of Consumer Collaboration.

However, one of the best examples actually comes from a non-CPG company: Starbucks with their program, MyStarbucksIdea.com. Launched in March 2008, the site arrived one year after Howard Schultz famously wrote an internal memo that said “[we] desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it’s time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience.” MyStarbucksIdea was a way to regain that heritage and passion by inviting Starbucks loyalists to collaborative on reinvigorating the brand. As Starbucks describes the site:

What would make your Starbucks experience perfect? We know you’ve got ideas – big ideas, little ideas, maybe even totally revolutionary ideas – and we want to hear them all. That’s why we created My Starbucks Idea. So you can share the ideas that matter to you and you can find out how we’re putting those ideas to work. Together, we will shape the future of Starbucks.

When the site first launched, the critics classified it as nothing more than a “glorified comment card.” But over the past year, Starbucks has shown that they are truly committed to making the site much more than that. In the spirit of Consumer Collaboration, Starbucks enrolls people throughout the lifetime of an idea. At the heart of the process is a team of Idea Partners – Starbucks employees who are experts in their respective field. These Idea partners read all ideas and comments on the site, but also guide ideas through the Starbucks organization. And just as important, they keep consumers up to date via the Ideas in action blog where Starbucks writes about the ideas that are recommended for implementation and details where they are in the process (Under Review, Reviewed, Coming Soon or Launched).

This is consumer collaboration at its finest. Starbucks isn’t inviting consumers to a two hour focus group where they give ideas and never talk to the company again. Instead they are inviting people to give their opinions and providing an outlet to do so. The result is that consumers are acting like part-owners of the company because their ideas are being heard. More brands need to follow the lead of Starbucks in this area, leveraging the power of digital to practice true Consumer Collaboration.

Shiv Singh pointed the way to a graphic that perfectly captures what Brand Managers are faced with today.  The complexity of marketing and media choices has exploded since the 1980’s.  But at the same time, this is what makes it so fun to be in brand marketing right now.