No Bull Shit Marketing

Social Media Features in Marketing Automation Systems: Who Does What?

2012-02-14T18:03:00.000Z

Social media is arguably overhyped as a marketing trend: it gets well under 10% of marketing budgets (different surveys have figures from 3% to 8%) and results are questionable (it was rated the least effective content marketing tactic in a recent MarketingProfs study). But social is clearly growing fast and has great potential. So marketing automation vendors are understandably eager to support it in their systems.

I recently took a quick tour of vendor sites to see what social features they’re offering. Results are summarized in the table below. I need to stress that I’ve only credited vendors for features they list on their site. I strongly suspect that the data is incomplete, especially for basic features that are so common the vendors simply don’t bother to mention them. (Note: the table has been updated after the original post based on vendor feedback, so it's a bit more reliable than it was originally.)

The features fell into four broad categories:

• Basic posting and sharing: the most common features and the simplest level of social media marketing. As I wrote above, most vendors probably have most of them even though the chart doesn’t show them.

• Social media monitoring: watching social media for mentions of the company or other topics and responding when appropriate. Plenty of third party applications can do this, so providing it within the marketing automation system is mostly a matter of convenience.

• Importing social data: loading social data into the marketing automation database so it can be used for segmentation, analysis, and sharing with salespeople via CRM integration. This is harder than monitoring since it requires linking social identities to marketing leads and connecting to the social system’s API.

• Social platform integration: using native features of the social platforms by writing to their APIs. This can be tricky for the marketing automation vendors to build but it lets their clients take greater advantage of social media possibilities.

Looking at the chart as a whole, what stands out is the sheer variety: once you get past the basics, no features are common enough to consider them standard. This contrasts sharply with mature categories like email, landing pages, and nurture campaigns, where dozens of features are shared by most systems. The reason is obvious – social media is still very young – but the disparity still provides interesting insights into what different vendors feel are most important to their clients.

The variety also illustrates that a great number of social media applications are possible (with plenty more to come). Naturally, the vendors will borrow features from each other, so we can expect some convergence over time.. A standard set of features will emerge as the industry figures out what’s really important.

The list below presents each vendor with a brief explanation of the table entries. Links on the vendor names go directly to the vendor Web page or press release that described their social media capabilities. In cases where the data came from different sources, I've put the link on the items themselves.

Neolane
- posting: central panel to post tweets and Facebook updates
- sharing: place sharing buttons on emails
- tracking: measure clicks on links in system-generated posts.
- Facebook forms: use forms within Facebook pages and apps to gather customer permissions
- social sign-in: use social media sign-in services to replace marketing automation forms
- personalized Facebook ads: display different ad versions on a Facebook page based on the user’s profile, including both Facebook and non-Facebook data

Marketo
- sharing: place sharing buttons on landing pages
- tracking: measure visitors from the shared pages
- load Twitter feed: connector to load Twitter conversations to lead profiles and use the conversations in campaign rules

Eloqua
- sharing: place sharing buttons on emails and other marketing materials
- social sign-in: use social media sign-in services to replace marketing automation forms
- Klout segmentation: add Klout scores to lead profiles and use them in campaign rules
- show Twitter feed: let salespeople see a lead’s Twitter posts on their Profiler dashboard

IBM/Unica
- social monitoring: use CoreMetrics Social to find social media mentions of company

Aprimo
- posting: manage blog posts with review process and SEO recommendations
- sharing: place sharing buttons on email and microsites
- tracking: integrate with third party web analytics to track social referrals
- monitoring: integrate with third party social listening tools for monitoring

Pardot
- posting: central panel to schedule and send social messages
- load social profile: use Qwerly to import social media profiles and add to marketing automation lead profile
- show social profile: show social profile data in CRM

Silverpop
- posting: send posts to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and/or RSS feeds along with email sends
- sharing: place sharing buttons on email
- social sign-in: use social media sign-in services to replace sign-in forms
- Facebook forms: add registration forms to Facebook and blogs
- badges and buttons: embed buttons and badges in email for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, StumbleUpon, XING

Act-On Software
- tracking: embed trackable links in system-generated posts
- social prospecting: find relevant social conversations and send to in-box; send template-based responses

SalesFusion
- sharing: place sharing buttons on email and landing pages
- tracking: embed trackable links in system-generated posts and online documents

TreeHouse Interactive
- sharing: place sharing buttons on email and landing pages
- tracking: embed trackable links in system-generated posts
- Facebook forms: build advanced forms that can work within Facebook pages

Net-Results
- load social profile: find data about visitors on Jigsaw, Linkedin, Twitter and post to marketing automation lead profile

Genius
- tracking: embed trackable links in personalized web promotions and chat messages

Loopfuse
- social monitoring: use Collecta realtime search to find social media mentions of company

HubSpot
- posting: send social media messages and blog posts
- sharing: place sharing buttons on blog posts and other content
- social monitoring: find social media mentions of company and respond
- Facebook forms: build ‘welcome’ app to capture leads on Facebook page

article written by David Raab on Customer Think

Amnesty International - Unlock the truth about Guantánamo

2012-02-13T23:30:00.002Z

Classification: Creativity: 3,5; Will to buy: 3,5; Empathy for the Brand: 3,7

Total: 3,6

Amnesty International Sweden added an outdoor element to its Slide to Unlock iPad campaign to promote text message activism, in an event marking the 10th anniversary of Guantanamo Bay's opening.

In November, it erected a digital billboard in Stureplan (the 'Times Square' of Sweden) to symbolise the difference thta signatures can make. The billboard reacted simultaneously whenever someone added their 'signature' on their iPad, with the name of the person appearing automatically on the big screen and the prisoner depicted appearing to be 'unlocked'. Amnesty collected 150,000 signatures which it delivered to President Obama ahead of his State of the Union address. The campaign is by Garbergs, authors of the original Slide to Unlock campaign, and digital production studio Yours.

Credits

Agency:: Garbergs
Client:: Amnesty International
Digital Production Company:: YOURS
Photography:: Adamsky

T-Mobile What Britain Loves

2012-02-11T21:32:00.003Z

Classification: Creativity: 3,5; Will to buy: 3,5; Empathy for the Brand: 3,7

Total: 3,6

"Watch as some of the weird and wonderful things Britain loves come together to celebrate another thing Britain loves - a bargain in the form of the Full Monty Plan"

Credits

Agency:: Saatchi & Saatchi
CD:: Paul Silburn
Client:: T-Mobile
Creative:: Dan Warner
Creative:: Andy Vasey
Prod. Co.:: Partizan
Director:: Traktor
Producer:: Traktor/Stu Giles
Editor:: Rick Russell
Editor:: Final Cut London
DOP:: Tim Maurice Jones
Production Design:: Neville Stevenson
Costume:: Emily Carter
Post Production:: Kamen Markov
Post Production:: MPC London

5 essential spreadsheets for social media analytics

2012-02-10T17:45:00.000Z

Social media analytics and tracking can be very time-consuming and expensive. You’ll find quite a few smart social media monitoring tools, but what if you can’t afford them?

That’s why many social media marketers and power users are in constant search of free, efficient alternatives. Here, we’ll share a few ready-made spreadsheets you can copy (navigate File + Make a copy) and use for social media analytics. They are free, highly customizable and extremely easy to use.

Most of the scripts that run the spreadsheets are “public,” meaning you can access them from the Tools + Script Gallery menu (this also means they were reviewed and approved by Google Spreadsheets team).

1. Fetch Twitter Search Results

GetTweets is a simple and fast Google Spreadsheet script that lets you quickly export Twitter search results into a spreadsheet. You can play with the spreadsheets in two ways.

Increase the number of results returned — up to 1,500. I managed to fetch about 1,300.
Twitter search operators can help you filter out links (search “-filter:links“) and find tweeted questions (search “?“). Check out this article on advanced social media search as well as this list for more search terms.

Spreadsheet details:

Public script? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: AutomateAnalytics.com.

2. Count Facebook Likes and Shares

FacebookLikes script evaluates Facebook user interaction for any given range of URLs. It will display:

Facebook like count.
Facebook share count.
Facebook comment count.
Overall Facebook interaction.

Additionally, the spreadsheet’s embedded chart lets you compare Facebook interaction for the number of pages provided.

Spreadsheet details:

Public script? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: Facebook Likes Counter.

3. Compare Facebook Pages

Like the previous spreadsheet, FacebookFans is a Google macro based on Facebook API. For any Facebook page ID, it fetches the number of fans. It also visualizes the data with a pretty pie chart. Track your as well as your competitors’ Pages using the script, and the numbers will update each time you open the spreadsheet — easy!

Spreadsheet details:

Public script? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: Facebook Fans Counter.

4. Monitor Social Media Reputation

This spreadsheet not only generates Google search results for the term you provide, but also fetches Twitter and Facebook counts for each page returned. Anyone can easily run a search for his or her brand name and see how actively it’s being discussed in social media.

Try using a few search Google operators, for example:

["brand name" -intitle:"brand name"] to find in-text brand mentions you are most likely to have missed.
[inurl:"guest * post" search term] to find recent guest blogging opportunities on the topic of your interest. Note: if you are getting a “too many connections” error, try another search to refresh the scripts. Or re-save the scripts from Tools + Script Manager.

Spreadsheet details:

Public scripts? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit here.

5. Extract and Archive Your Followers

This spreadsheet is the hardest to set up, but also has the most complex functionality. It lets you extract your friends and followers to easily search and filter your Twitter contacts.

The script requires your own Twitter API key (which is pretty easy to get), and provides easy-to-follow set up instructions. Try running the scripts a couple of times to get them working. Go to Tools + Script Manager and run Test script.

If you have done everything correctly, a Twitter Auth will pop up. Then, you’ll be able to authenticate your own application. After, go to Twitter + Get Followers and you should see the tool importing your following list. However, if you have large following, you likely won’t be able to import it all (for me, that meant about 5,000 recent followers).

Spreadsheet details:

Public scripts? No.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: Export Twitter Followers and Friends.

Are you aware of any other useful, social media-related Google spreadsheets? Please share them in the comments!

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Jirsack

article written by Ann Smarty on Mashable

Dump The Big Six

2012-02-10T00:32:00.001Z

Classification: Creativity: 3,6; Will to buy(adhere): 4; Empathy for the Brand: 3,6

Total: 3,7

It’s time to Dump The Big Six

Against a backdrop of widespread anger with Big Power in the UK, Ecotricity has launched its “Dump The Big Six” rallying call to ditch your badly behaved supplier and make Britain greener.

The Big Six (British Gas, EDF Energy, E.ON, Npower, Scottish & Southern, Scottish Power) have long enjoyed a carbon-fuelled chokehold the UK’s energy, supplying 99% of customers. But is their grip crumbling?

Ecotricity founder Dale Vince OBE, the man credited with kick-starting the world’s green electricity market, believes now is the moment to topple the grey giants and bring the UK into the renewable energy future.

Cravendale - The Muppets

2012-02-09T00:20:00.000Z

Classification: Creativity: 3,7; Will to buy(watch): 4,1; Empathy for the Brand: 4,2

Total: 4

Wieden + Kennedy's unbelievably cute 20-second spot for Cravendale Milk features Kermit showing off his backpack (Cravendale's doing a giveaway) to Pepe the King Prawn. Tim Curry, who voiced 'Cats With Thumbs' VO's this one too.. - via creativity online

Credits

Agency:

Wieden + Kennedy

Client:

Cravendale

Prod. Co.:

Soapbox

10 Lessons in Brilliant Marketing

2012-02-06T19:24:00.001Z

written by Jennifer Wang on Entrepreneur

During the height of her popularity, Paris Hilton once fired this retort at critics: "It will work. I am a marketing genius." Sadly, those of us who aren't as blessed must face the fact that creating a campaign that captures millions of eyeballs and produces millions in sales is about as likely as Hilton's big Hollywood comeback.

Still, each year there are marketing initiatives that hit on that winning combination of great idea, perfect timing and flawless execution. From viral campaigns to, well, virus campaigns, we've picked 10 marketing marvels of 2011, pulling out a few lessons to help you create brilliance. You're welcome--now the rest is up to you.

1. The Contagion Bacteria Billboard

Image 1 of 10

Warner Bros. Canada, Curb Media and ad agency Lowe Roche took their promotion ofContagion, Steven Soderbergh's film about a mysterious airborne virus, to new heights of literalness. They hired a group of microbiologists and immunologists to inoculate a billboard with penicillin, mold and pigmented bacteria that grew (thanks to light and temperature controls) to spell out the name of the movie, and set it up in an abandoned storefront window in Toronto. Some passers-by were squicked, but the campaign got a ton of press, won media awards and served as inspiration to industry peers like John Laramie, the CEO of New York City-based Adstruc, a startup with a tech platform for outdoor advertising. "Pretty cool," he says. "It was probably one of those crazy ideas somebody just came up with, but planned and executed perfectly."

Lesson: Go guerrilla.

Things can go viral if you break the mold, so to speak, of a traditional campaign. Ryan Lum, creator of the blog Creative Guerilla Marketing, says the virus billboard is a great example of guerilla marketing done right. "It makes people on the street who see it wonder, and raises questions about what it's trying to promote," he says.

2. 7-Eleven's Slurpee Unity Tour

Image 2 of 10

During the contentious midterm elections, President Obama accused Republicans of "standing, watching us, sippin' on a Slurpee" while Democrats did all the work. Post-election, and in a better mood, Obama joked about hosting a Slurpee Summit at the White House with incoming Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner. 7-Eleven took this as a product endorsement from the most powerful man in the world and ran with it with all the marketing power it could muster. The convenience-store franchise tapped agency FreshWorks to create the Slurpee Unity Tour. Trucks bearing the campaign logo, picturing an elephant and a donkey sharing a Slurpee cup, made their way across America giving out samples, including a special Purple for the People Slurpee, made from a mix of the red and blue frozen treats.

Lesson: Pay attention.
You can score big if you keep up with current events and speak to what's on people's minds. "This campaign was timely, effective, entertaining, memorable," says Mark Schaefer, marketing consultant and founder of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. "They essentially turned the president into a brand advocate. How can you lose with that?"

Image courtesy of 7-Eleven

3. Lululemon Athletica's Ambassador Program

Image 3 of 10

Instead of mimicking bigger brands like Nike and Adidas by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on fancy campaigns with star athletes, Vancouver, British Columbia-based lululemon athletica went grassroots to generate buzz--and major sales of its $100 yoga pants. Since its founding in 1998, the company has implemented an ambassador program, recruiting local athletes and fitness instructors (unpaid, but given $1,000 in clothing and gear) to test products, wear the brand in front of impressionable students and lead classes in local stores. "We will go where our ambassadors tell us to go," says Eric Peterson, director of brand innovation in
new markets--a smart move, and a lucrative one, considering 2012 revenue projections are around $1 billion. The campaign, says Tom Gierasimczuk, editor-in-chief of Marketingmagazine in Canada, "strengthens the brand because the ambassadors are so accessible to the community, and show that the company is giving back to its buyers."

Lesson: Woo "citizen influencers."
Find a way to turn your best customers into brand evangelists, and you've got it made. "I love that lululemon is letting customers carry their story--not movie stars, not celebrity athletes," says Schaefer, whose book on marketing via citizens, Return on Influence, is due to be published by McGraw-Hill next month. "It's one thing if a brand tells you they're great, but it's much better when another customer tells you so."

Image courtesy of Lululemon

4. Intel's The Museum of Me

Image 4 of 10

To advertise the power of its second-generation Core processor, Intel came up with the "Visually Smart" campaign. Then, to make the connection that the product could help "visualize" a person's life, the company worked with Japanese digital agency Projector for five months to create The Museum of Me. The Facebook app accesses a user's account, scours it for photos and content and, in a matter of seconds, displays a polished short film that archives the person's life in a virtual gallery. The initiative became a viral sensation, with more than 1 million hits in five days--all achieved without any paid media promotion. "We tapped directly into people's emotions and what they cared about, and found a way to tell a personalized story," says Pam Didner, Intel's global integrated marketing manager.

Lesson: Get personal.
Obviously, relating to customers is vitally important for any marketing effort. Intel was able to "successfully communicate the human benefits of using a somewhat technical and complicated product in an easy-to-understand way and … accomplish solid, measurable business objectives," says Kent Huffman, co-publisher of Social Media Marketing Magazine.

Image courtesy of Intel

5. About.me's Billboard Contest

Image 5 of 10

The popular AOL-owned service about.me, which enables users to create a landing page that aggregates all their online profiles, came up with a simple but far-reaching contest to raise its profile: People who got the most votes on their about.me page would win a spot on a billboard in Times Square, plus a trip to New York to check out their prize. Motivated contestants got to work tweeting and posting to Facebook, driving five times the usual amount of visitor traffic to about.me. Some even designed YouTube video campaigns and old-fashioned paper fliers to hand out at school football games. Ryan Fujiu, who heads up about.me's partnerships and user acquisition, says the contest turned about.me users into a team of word-of-mouth marketers. "Marketing on the social web," he says, "is all about giving your users an incentive to talk about your product with their friends, co-workers and family."

Lesson: Raise the stakes.
Give your customers a reason to care, and you'll be helping them help you. Christopher Renz, co-founder of Miami-based new-media agency The brpr Group, notes that the campaign leveraged the inherent vanity of social media users--himself included--who pushed their profiles through Twitter and Facebook. "Much of the feedback I received was not about my profile, but people asking, ‘What is about.me?'" he says. "Mission accomplished for them."

Image courtesy of About.me

6. Spotify's U.S. launch

Image 6 of 10

When Spotify, a music-streaming service that boasts more than 10 million users in Europe, arrived stateside last summer, it deployed a launch strategy that catapulted it to the top of an extremely competitive playing field populated by the likes of Pandora, Rhapsody and Google Music. First the company focused on getting early adopters and influencers with high Klout scores to "tell everyone they know." Then there were the limited beta invites, which controlled the number of free subscriptions and elevated demand for the service. When September rolled around, Spotify joined forces with Facebook. By now, the only holdouts are probably people too afraid to out themselves as Taylor Swift fans to everyone on their social networks.

Lesson: Be exclusive.
Two words: invitation only. "Those invites were in high demand, and it got users clamoring to be a part of the cool crowd," Renz says. Equally important, Schaefer adds, was the campaign's sustainability: "When Spotify launched, I was surrounded by buzz from all directions--friends, my kids, Twitter--and it didn't let up, because the product delivered."

Image courtesy of Spotify

7. Method's Commercial

Image 7 of 10

When Method, a San Francisco-based producer of eco-friendly cleaning products, entered the laundry detergent market, it seemed a Herculean task to change buying habits and convince Tide users that a small, 20-ounce bottle could do 50 loads of laundry--all with a puny marketing budget of $200,000. Method co-founder and brand architect Eric Ryan decided the best way would be to enlist the help of customers. The company hired media agency Mekanism to produce a crowdsourced commercial, asking people to record themselves performing specific actions from a storyboard and submit those clips for a final edit. A total of 332 consumers participated, along with those who showed up for an open casting call. When the infinitely watchable video aired, it was the week's 93rd most-viewed YouTube clip and resulted in a 68 percent increase in the number of Method's Facebook fans. Brpr's Renz, who has worked with Method in the past, says the beauty of crowdsourcing here meant there was a built-in distribution network for the commercial once it was complete.

Lesson: Have a conversation.
Talk to your customers; a brand that engages in dialogue will do better than one that prefers to lecture. "As a mission-driven brand, we have great consumer advocates," Ryan says.

Image courtesy of Method

8. Perrier's YouTube campaign

Image 8 of 10

After keeping a low profile in North America for more than a dozen years, Perrier made a big splash in 2011 with an edgy digital and social media push that captured the attention of a younger demographic. With the help of Ogilvy & Mather and ZenithOptimedia, the beverage company made a series of YouTube videos under its "Melting" campaign called "Le Club Perrier," featuring scantily clad dancers partying in a melting nightclub. The scene, it promised, would become "sexier, steamier and wilder" as more viewers tuned in and additional videos were unlocked. More than 11.5 million viewers took the (rather attractive) bait.

Lesson: Make it share-worthy.
It's all about the "pass-along value" in social media. "Rather than putting the videos out there and asking people to send [them] around, there was enough incentive for them to start clicking on their own," says Natalie Zmuda, an Advertising Age reporter. "You can make creative, beautiful, interesting things that don't go anywhere if people--especially young people--don't feel inclined to show it to their friends."

Image courtesy of Perrier

9. Apple's Siri spots

Image 9 of 10

No marketing-brilliance list worth its salt would leave off Apple and longtime agency partner TBWA. In 2011, the release of the iPhone 4 kicked off with commercials starring Siri, a voice-driven assistant who takes dictation, schedules appointments, sends e-mails, searches the web and directs users to the nearest Starbucks. One 30-second TV spot ran through a dozen scenarios demonstrating how Siri works for everyone from soccer moms to CEOs, and showed Apple products doing what theydo best: making your life easier. (Plus, making you shell out for things you never knew you needed.)

Lesson: Solve a problem.
It's always a good bet to focus on how a product or service helps customers, rather than bragging about your best features, no matter how cool they are. "Whether the target audience is a consumer or another business, you have to explain how you can fit into work flow and improve lifestyle," says John Obrecht, editor of marketing strategy magazine BtoB.

Image courtesy of Apple

10. Disney's Dream Portraits

Image 10 of 10

Since 2007, Disney has blurred the lines between art, advertising and editorial content with its "Dream Portraits" campaign. The company books A-list photographer Annie Leibovitz to capture some of the world's most beloved stars as legendary Disney characters. The latest: Penelope Cruz as wide-eyed Belle and Jeff Bridges as the transformed Beast, Queen Latifah as the villainous Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Olivia Wilde as the Evil Queen in Snow White.

"It's a big, big idea that took a lot of soul-searching and deep analysis of the brand. It's executed simply and deeply, incorporating actors, who are agents of escape that epitomize fantasy," says Marketing magazine's Gierasimczuk.

Lesson: Knock it out of the park.
Few companies can rival Disney's ad spend, but no matter your budget, a traditional, well-executed campaign with one stunning narrative can be more effective than one that's fragmented across contests, Facebook fan pages and a multitude of other channels. According to Gierasimczuk, the Leibovitz portraits, like Absolut Vodka's classic ads, demonstrate how the best concepts can lend themselves to long-running campaigns.

Photo © Annie Leibovitz for Disney Parks

“A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation”

2012-02-02T15:16:00.003Z

Earlier this month Jeremiah Owyang and his team at Altimeter Group published a report called “A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation” – The SlideShare version is below.

ExecutiveSummary

Like a disease, social media proliferation will leave companies crippled unless they develop a strategy to manage now. Some companies have opened a virtual Pandora’sbox: We found that global corporations are struggling to manage an average of 178 business related social media accounts— a number likely to grow if unchecked. Beyond coordination challenges, unchecked accounts and disparate customer interactions expose brands to a host of legal, compliance, and fragmented brand-perception risks.

Internally, few companies are prepared with proper roles, education, or clearly defined goals. Externally, brands are confused by dozens of vendor options. Employees and business units are adopting commodity technology haphazardly, resulting in inconsistent customer experiences and measurement. As a result, companies have begun to harness Social Media Management Systems to manage the multitude of customer touch points in social, while leveraging services that range from education, integration, community moderation, and beyond.

Companies must follow these pragmatic steps:

1) First prepare the company internally, and conduct audits to verify readiness.

2) Determine which of the five social media management use cases, defined in this report, the company aligns to.

3) Select vendors based on business needs, not marketing.

4) Tap into services, support teams, and outsourced community management services.

5) Roll out internally in a systematic way that starts with education, training, mock work flows, and thorough testing

A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang

click here to download - It's necessary to have a slideshare account (free)

p.s - slideshare scrolling is BULL!!!

Super Bowl XLVI - Automakers brands ads II (Chevy, Acura, Lexus)

2012-02-01T01:18:00.005Z

Chevy: Happy Grad

Classification: Creativity: 3,6; Will to buy: 4; Empathy for the Brand: 3,8

Total: 3,8

Chevrolet has released one of their Super Bowl Ads ‘Chevy Happy Grad‘, which is Chevrolet’s Route 66 winning entry created by Zack Borst.

Acura: Transactions

Classification: Creativity: 3,7; Will to buy: 3,6; Empathy for the Brand: 3,7

Total: 3,7

Jerry Seinfeld is so excited about the new Acura NSX that he will stop at nothing to acquire the very first one. Check out the extended version of Acura's big game commercial.

Lexus: The Beast

Lexus has unleashed "The Beast," the company's first-ever Super Bowl commercial, prior to Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday, February 5 on NBC.

Super Bowl XLVI - Automakers brands ads (Honda, Hyundai, Toyota)

2012-01-31T01:47:00.001Z

Classification: Creativity: 4; Will to buy: 4; Empathy for the Brand: 4

Total: 4

Toyota reinvents more than the Camry in this extended version of the blockbuster commercial that started it all.

Credits

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi LA,

Client: Toyota USA

Classification: Creativity: 3,8; Will to buy: 3,6; Empathy for the Brand: 3,7

Total: 3,7

At 348 horsepower, the Genesis Coupe gives new meaning to the phrase "Heart Pounding Power"

Classification: Creativity: 3,4; Will to buy: 3,5; Empathy for the Brand: 3,3

Total: 3,7

To celebrate the launch of the all-new 2012 CR-V, Honda brought Ferris Bueller's Day Off back in a big game commercial. We cast Matthew Broderick as himself, skipping out on a day of acting work and living it up in his all-new CR-V. Relive movie history with Honda's fresh twist and wonderful homage to this '80s classic.

Keep Team GB Pumped

2012-01-29T15:28:00.000Z

Classification: Creativity: 4,3; Will to buy(participate): 4; Empathy for the Brand: 4,2

Total: 4,2

Cadbury's with his campaign "Keep Team GB Pumped" invited fans to hide in "normal" places while the Olympic athletes train. In this video you can watch the team members get surprised by dancing shuttlecocks and singers popping out of ping pong tables .

You can watch the full story of the track, and add your voice to our next track on our website, http://www.keepourteampumped.com.

Credits

Agency: Hypernaked

Client:Cadbury

2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions by Awareness, Inc.

2012-01-28T16:12:00.003Z

"In his book Engage!, BriaN SoliS posits that “New media is a matter of digital Darwinism affecting any and all forms of marketing and service. In the world of democratized influence, businesses must endure a perpetual survival of the fittest. Engage or die!”

Given the importance of new and social media on every aspect of business, the leadership team at Awareness Inc. connected with the influencers who are shaping the new marketing agenda. We contacted business and marketing experts, marketing leaders and agency visionaries to create a list of top 2012 predictions and trends.

This white paper contains their collective intelligence and insights for what is to come next year. We hope you find these expert predictions informative, educational and actionable so you, the business and marketing leaders of today, can successfully engage in the evolving ecosystem that supports the socialization of information, and are in a position to help businesses adapt to the new era of lasting relationships.

Awareness contacted over 34 leading marketing strategists, such as David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, Erik Qualman, Paul Gillin and Steve Rubel; strategists at leading companies such as Intel and Constant Contact; and visionaries at marketing agencies like Mindjumpers, Holland-Mark, Voce Communications and Raidious to collect their insights along six key areas:

Part 1 Predictions for the biggest (social) marketing developments
Part 2 The role of “big data” in (social) marketing
Part 3 Key technology to impact (social) marketing
Part 4 The role of mobile in (social)
Part 5 The top challenges for (social) marketers
Part 6 The top trusted news resources

appendix Biography

This 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions white paper follows the six parts outlined above, with each part containing insights from three separate groups:

1) Leading marketing strategists
2) Brand marketers at leading companies
3) Leading thinkers from marketing consulting firms and social marketing agencies. "

Download here this paper.

.

BMW Interactive Projection

2012-01-20T22:22:00.000Z

Classification: Creativity: 4,2; Will to buy(participate): 4,2; Empathy for the Brand: 4

Total: 4,1

Advertising the new BMW 1 Series, iLogic allowed consumers to engage with the brand in a new, exciting way. Keeping in mind that unmatched innovation is always part of the BMW driving experience, iLogic developed Interactive Video Projections. Full activation on the ground took place over eight nights in major cities across South Africa. Locations were vibey, high-traffic main streets. Through a high powered, HD projector, iLogic projected an interactive racing game onto buildings and scaffoldings (Screen measuring 108m2).

Data Is Great, But You Need to Learn When to Ignore It

2012-01-19T21:13:00.001Z

Who can resist the temptation of real-time marketing performance data? I can't. Whether we've posted a video on YouTube or started to promote a Facebook page, it's hard to stop clicking the refresh button throughout the day to watch the number of "views" and "likes" increase.

I love digging into the analytics on our agency website to see the most popular search engine terms, the page view trends, the top traffic referrers and the amount of time visitors are spending on the site. I'm intrigued by the new suite of metrics that Facebook has introduced, and I enjoy the process of optimizing online ads based on the sites, sizes and creative executions that perform best.

It's not surprising that most people in the marketing business feel the same way: after all, we live in a society that loves to keep score. From the time we're old enough to comprehend the merits of earning a gold star, we're conditioned to want instant, quantified validation of our success. But as marketers, it's possible that our obsession with data has become counterproductive.

Simply put, the fact that one can measure something doesn't mean that one should, and the fact that something is quantifiable doesn't necessarily make it paramount to something that isn't. Yet most marketers seem determined to measure anything and everything, regardless of the utility of the data, and some are so obsessed with KPIs that they unwittingly (or worse, wittingly) compromise the real-world impact of their marketing activities in order to move the needles on their performance dashboards.

I realize I'm not introducing a new perspective; others have voiced similar concerns about the perils of data obsession. Unfortunately, those of us who are proponents of balancing quantitative and qualitative measurement—that is, seeing the trees and the forest—have generally been unsuccessful at converting analytics enthusiasts. So while I may not be suggesting an entirely new paradigm, I hope to frame this point-of-view in a way that inspires the non-believers to reevaluate their position.

To that end, consider the following metaphor: optimizing marketing activities based entirely or even predominantly on quantitative measures is a Ponzi scheme. Expanding on that theme, metrics such as "Likes," "Views," "Shares," "CTR" and "Page views," are "paper wealth" that may or may not be backed by actual currency of tangible value such as increased awareness, affinity, purchase intent or sales. And the more paper wealth one creates, the more "schemes" one must implement to meet inflated prior-year benchmarks. While this approach may enable agencies and marketing managers to create impressive charts and graphs for a few months or even a few years, eventually the "investors" (CMOs, CEOs, and actual investors) are going to come looking for their money. And when that day comes, no Excel document or pie chart will be an acceptable proxy—nor should it be.

Admittedly, this matter isn't black and white. But while there's a broad spectrum of gray area within which "paper value" translates into tangible value at varying exchange rates, I'm making a mutually exclusive distinction between the two in an effort to streamline my argument. And my argument is this: I'd rather have 10,000 views of a branded video that increases purchase intent than a million views of a video that simply makes people laugh; I'd rather have a .02 CTR on a banner ad that drives highly qualified and motivated traffic to my site than a 2.0 CTR on a banner ad that tricks disinterested consumers to my site; I'd rather have 25 thoughtful comments on a Facebook status update that's related to my brand than 250 comments on an update about the various reasons to bemoan Mondays.

To be clear, I understand how EdgeRank and search engines work, and why, consequently, some amount of "gaming the system" may be required to ensure a brand's message is seen; we're all at the mercy of algorithms, and Google and Facebook have inspired many of the manipulations marketers have deployed in their efforts to garner impressions and promote consumer actions.

Furthermore, because I believe brands should behave like humans (not corporations) when using social media, I support efforts to connect with consumers by initiating conversations about current events, pop culture and other topics not directly related to an advertisers product or service. I'm simply suggesting that marketers have to understand the cause of the numbers they hold so dearly. After all, if people are spending less time on a website that's recently been redesigned, it may be because the new architecture has made it easier for them to find what they're looking for.

Of course, there are many reasons and ways to tip the digital scales in a brand's favor. But marketers who get caught up in "gaming the system" end up competing for first prize in a contest that only rewards them with "paper value." In much the same way that Bernie Madoff borrowed money from one investor to pay dividends to another, they end up borrowing equity from one place to represent it in another. And like borrowed money, "borrowed interest" is not a brand's to keep

written by Mike Wolfsohn on AdAge

Stop Pipa and Sopa

2012-01-18T23:47:00.001Z

Engine Advocacy states the whole foundations of the internet are at risk if Congress signs SOPA and PIPA. Instead of going after individuals the United States is going to limit the internet by blocking and shutting down copyrighted content. If SOPA and PIPA are enacted it will limit new ideas and has the potential to destroy sites with user submitted content including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and more.

It's Not You, It's Your Website - ClickTale AMA Webinar

2012-01-18T22:25:00.000Z

"Is your website simply not converting as much as you'd like it to? Are your competitor’s sites performing better than yours? After researching tens of thousands of websites, over a massive range of industries, we'll reveal the top reasons why customers are abandoning your site or are failing to convert, and the five things you can do today to fix it!" - via American Marketing Association

It's Not You, It's Your Website - ClickTale AMA Webinar from ClickTale on Vimeo.

Wiring the open-source enterprise by McKinsey Quarterly

2012-01-17T19:16:00.002Z

If you are a usual reader of the blog, reading another excerpt of a McKinsey Quarterly is not a novelty. So I could resist to publish some excerpts from the article "Wiring the open-source enterprise". I hope you enjoy it.

Social technologies lie at the core of a new model that spurs user participation and speeds up product innovation.

Open innovation isn’t a new phenomenon. The first Oxford English Dictionary was an open-source project: editors solicited the participation of hundreds of amateur volunteer readers. Fascinating examples of information sharing and innovative intellectual-property arrangements can also be found in the evolution of Cornish pumping engines in the 18th century and of blast furnaces in northern England during the 19th century. Software itself was distributed free of charge during the 1950s.¹

But open innovation has been gathering force in recent years, thanks to the emergence of the Internet as a global information-sharing network; the increasing importance of digitizable, knowledge-based products and services; and the sheer volume of data being generated, processed, and stored by a wide range of enterprises. From a beachhead in software (see companion article, “Managing the business risks of open innovation”), open innovation has spread to a range of industries that use external insights to boost internal R&D efforts or even rely on outside networks for core product ideas. Our latest research on Web 2.0 technologies reveals that more and more executives are taking advantage of these opportunities and foresee the need for organizational change if their companies are to compete in a more open, networked environment.

Organizational change to catalyze contributions

While the number of open-source projects is growing rapidly, research has shown that about 90 percent of them don’t fully achieve their potential. Leaders will need to know how the innovation landscape is evolving and be ready to respond by following some basic tenets.

Start at the grass roots. Our survey research indicates that nearly half of the early adopters of collaborative technologies promoted their use by mobilizing people on lower levels of the organization. Hierarchal, top-down controls rarely succeed, since most creative interactions are tacit and dynamic.

Develop competencies at the edge. Companies best leverage social and knowledge networks by venturing beyond corporate boundaries, as P&G has done. But opening the gates of the enterprise doesn’t guarantee a robust network—and could compromise valuable intellectual property. Success depends upon the ability to gain the trust of users, transparency, and a deft hand in managing interactions.

Understand what makes participants tick. Users and consumers have different motives for contributing their time and skills. For some, the goal is simply recognition; for others, rewards or revenue sharing may be necessary to induce valuable efforts. Determining what matters for your priority constituencies is crucial.

click here to read the full article

Daffy's Virtual Peep Show in Times Square New York

2012-01-15T14:03:00.000Z

Classification: Creativity: 4,3; Will to buy: 4; Empathy for the Brand: 4,1

Total: 4,1

Daffy's, a high fashion retail store, recently opened up and wanted to inform their customers of their new store location and amazing sales of up to 80% off high end fashion. The challenge was how to break through all the clutter in one of the most advertised cities in the country. In order to do this, they decided to bring back the old peep show and sleaze factor of old Times Square New York.

Devito/Verdi, USA with helpt of Click 3X created an interactive virtual peep show. People passing the street can walk up to the digital display and press their hand to the glass. Instead of using money, this interactive peep show only required a person to put their hand on the window. Upon pressing the "button" the red velvet drapes would open and reveal a young model strutting her stuff. As the model slowly does her thing and removes portions of her clothing, you'll notice a sign above the model that flashes, "Wanna see what 20 percent off looks like?"

As the sign slowly changes to more percent off, more clothing items fly off until it reaches 80%. At that point, the velvet curtain drops and the show ends with "Wanna see more? Come downstairs" flashing across the screen.

Advertising Agency: Devito/Verdi, USA
Production / Post Production: Click 3X
Senior Producer: Ephraim Kehlmann
Producer: Jenny Corbett
Animations: Claudeland Louis
Editor: Erin McCaffrey
Development: Jonathan Schnapp

A rising role for IT: McKinsey Global Survey results

2012-01-09T19:30:00.000Z

Mckinsey released their global survey results, I'm gonna share with you some excerpts:

The online survey was in the field from October 4 to October 14, 2011, and generated responses from 927 executives. Of these respondents, 488 have a technology focus, and the other 439 represent other functional specialties. The respondents represent the full range of industries, regions, company sizes, and tenures.

Aspirations and current expectations for IT have never been higher. Executives continue to set exacting demands for IT support of business processes, and they see an even larger role for IT in a competitive environment increasingly shaken up by technology disruptions. (...) Looking ahead, executives expect IT to create new platforms to support innovation and growth, help guide strategy with data and advanced analytics, and stay on top of possible new roles for mobile devices. For IT leaders, the good news is that along with these higher expectations, most respondents also see a greater willingness to spend more on IT.

Meeting expectation

Among respondents to this survey, the highest current priorities for IT mirror those of previous surveys: improving the effectiveness and efficiency of business processes and reducing IT cost. (...)

Higher budgets, changing priorities

Perhaps due to a combination of rising faith in IT, the realization of competitive challenges ahead, and a more positive business outlook, more respondents expect their organizations to increase spending in 2012. (...)

More data to support decisions

Executives say their companies still rely upon a mix of data and experience in decision making, although they are increasingly looking to analytics tools for support.

New platforms on the move

Both IT and non-IT executives say their organizations are beginning to take advantage of new platforms to further innovation: data and analytics, social Internet technologies (those known as Web 2.0), social media platforms (such as Facebook and Twitter), embedded computing, and cloud computing (Exhibit 4). Such platforms can be used to meet a variety of goals, including better customer and partner engagement and the creation of new products and services. While most respondents indicate that these platforms have yet to be deployed at scale, significant shares say their companies are using them in selected areas or piloting them. (...)

Mobile technologies—for example, smartphones, tablets, and sensors—are growing in importance, according to respondents. They say their companies are using mobile technologies and applications both internally as collaboration and efficiency tools and externally to create stronger links with customers and business partners. Respondents in Europe are slightly ahead of the curve in mobile-technology deployment at scale. The region where these mobile technologies are most often deployed selectively in pockets across the enterprise is developed Asia: respondents there lead the rest of the world by anywhere from 10 to 20 percentage points in selective use of mobile for customer and business partner engagement.

IT in the boardroom

As technology becomes a more important factor in reshaping industries, survey respondents say their organizations’ boards of directors should play a more active role in deciding how technology is incorporated into overall strategy. Respondents say that the most important technology-related discussions at their board meetings revolve around approval or review of very large IT projects; but ideally, they say, discussions should address forward-looking assessments of technology trends.

Looking ahead

Many executives indicate their companies are struggling with the substantial technical challenges of increasing their use of data and analytics. In our experience, some of the toughest challenges are creating a “single source” of truth, consolidating data architectures, and developing analytic tools and skills. But critical as these challenges are, successful rollouts often require a softer element—attention to the cultural changes to encourage increased reliance on data for decision making as well as the training required to help leaders at all levels incorporate analytics into regular practice.

According to respondents, business executives continue to ask IT to create more value by enabling business processes with technology, which is driving a significant amount of increased investment. In our experience, success in these efforts requires creating solid, welldefined business cases that include clear stage gates and metrics for holding business and IT leaders accountable.

New technology platforms and capabilities are clearly creating new opportunities at many different levels within organizations. We often see business executives experimenting with these platforms outside of IT’s awareness or permission. Given the proliferation and potential importance of these platforms, IT executives must shift from being gatekeepers to being enablers and service managers—guiding, supporting, and assisting their colleagues in these experiments to ensure that corporate policies, data security, or risk guidelines are not endangered.

click here, register and download the full article (pdf).

Nubot The Video Chat Doll as if you are there!

2012-01-06T00:55:00.000Z

By turn freaky, by turn adorable, this robotic avatar, nubot, was created by Japanese planning company Nuuo for use in staff meetings between different places. Created by the same guys who worked on the Tiny Riot App, the robot is a little doll with a screen as a face. Using webcam and Skype, you can manipulate the doll's movements as if you are actually there. Similar to W+K's virtual Christmas Dinner and del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi's friend recovery, you can be there when your faraway friends, family or colleagues need you. You just can't eat the noodles.

Look-a-liker - Stockholm Globe Arenas

2012-01-04T23:34:00.001Z

Classification: Creativity: 4,2; Will to buy(participate): 4,2; Empathy for the Brand: 4

Total: 4,1

Who do your friends look like?

To arouse interest in upcoming acts, Swedish music venue Stockholm Globe Arenas created a Facebook app where users compete for tickets by working out which of their friends most resembles a rock star.

Users choose three friends who most resembles an upcoming act takes their profile picture and use their eyes, a nose and a mouth to form a portrait presented as a concert poster. The most highly rated poster of the week wins tickets for all three friends included in the poster, together with the author of the artwork themselves. The app was created by Stockholm agency Pool. - via creativity online.

Why Marketer Love for QR Codes Is Not Shared by Consumers

2012-01-04T22:56:00.000Z

Quick-response codes are everywhere these days, even the soccer field. This fall, a squad of London footballers shaved the back of their heads in the design as a promotional stunt. But consumers are not nearly as excited about QR codes as marketers are.

The codes are a great idea in theory. They let marketers make all sorts of media -- print, billboards, even packaging -- clickable and interactive. When scanned with a special app downloaded to a smartphone, QR codes can call up links, text messages or videos. They can spark e-commerce or generate a lead.

But in practice, while QR codes are affixed to everything from rental cars to Bratz dolls, only 5% of Americans who own mobile phones actually used the 2-D barcodes in the three months ending July 2011, according to Forrester Research. And those 14 million early adopters tended to be young, affluent and male.

Experts cite three reasons that QR codes haven't caught on. First, people are confused about how to scan them. Two, there's little uniformity among the apps required to read them. Last, some who have tried the technology were dissuaded by codes that offer little useful information or simply redirect the user to the company's website.

None of this deters marketers, who seem to be slapping the codes on products for all age groups and demographics.

"QR codes are definitely everywhere," said Kelli Robertson, director-strategy for digital agencyAKQA.

The QR phenomenon is "another instance of shiny-object syndrome," said Melissa Parrish, Forrester's senior analyst-social and mobile marketing. "Something becomes trendy or sexy, and marketers feel they have to jump onboard to position themselves as innovative and make sure they don't fall behind."

Car-rental outfit Enterprise pasted QR codes on the driver-side windows of 1 million of its North American vehicles so passersby can get more information about the automaker.

JC Penney put the codes on holiday tags so that gift-givers could include a recorded greeting on the box -- one of many QR-code programs from the retailer.

QRblaster.com, which generates codes, published a list of the worst campaigns of the year. It included marketers and publishers with unreadable or obscured codes. Some were offered in areas with no internet access, which means a scan cannot load anything to the phone. Red Bull put QR codes on the subway, and United Airlines had them on in-flight magazines read primarily far outside cell-service range.

In a well-meaning misstep, MillerCoors partnered with Seattle bars and restaurants over the holidays so that patrons who had imbibed a bit too much could snap a QR code to get a cab. The effort assumed that revelers still had enough dexterity to aim a phone and get a clear shot.

"Marketers fall in love with tools and forget the reality of how they're used," said Ms. Robertson at AKQA.

The appeal to marketers is clear. Implementing the codes is far less expensive than developing a proprietary app. They offer the ability to measure consumer activity and can provide shoppers with information, freeing up salespeople and increasing productivity.

But what's the risk of the many QR codes that are unhelpful, don't work or are so complicated that it would be easier to enter a URL?

"If you are not paying off [the QR scan] with content that's rewarding or valuable, then the experience falls flat and consumers won't use it again," Ms. Robertson said.

Despite low usage, marketers are staying loyal to QR codes.

Home Depot, for example, put QR codes on plants this spring so that customers could learn more about the items and which go best together.

A spokeswoman for the home-improvement retailer acknowledged that adoption has been slow, but the company continued to test the technology on artificial Christmas trees and lights.

"I haven't found any brands that have totally scrapped the codes," said Ms. Parrish at Forrester.

Education may also be an answer. Last spring, Macy's did national TV ads on its QR codes, and shoppers who scanned them got informational videos from clothing designers. The initiative exceeded expectations and got positive customer feedback, according to a spokeswoman. Use of the codes tripled after Macy's tweaked the content and offered shorter videos in the fall.

written by: on AdAge Digital

Social Media: Five Facts to Bank On in 2012

2012-01-03T23:30:00.001Z

A new year on the calendar means new hope, new opportunities, new products, new trends and, most important of all, new budgets for many marketers. And while you'll get served your share of predictions for the year ahead, here are five things you can bank on happening in social media.

The Face of Facebook Pages is Changing. Again.

The new Facebook Timeline began rolling out to individual user profiles last month and is designed to be the "journal of your life." Timeline is also coming to Pages, likely soon. While it's unclear exactly when it is coming or how similar it will be to what we've already seen, we should expect the rollout to begin early this year.

While brands' core strategy of creating content and messaging fans in their own newsfeed will not change, the content journey and user experience most certainly will. Facebook has already removed the restriction that prevents non-fans from interacting with Pages, and it would not be surprising to see them do away with "like gate" landing tabs as well. If that is the case, the approach to applications will change significantly and will be accessible only via paid media or engaging wall post messages.

In their place, expect to see the proliferation of open graph applications that aggregate on the Timeline. Spotify, Rdio, Yahoo! and The Wall Street Journal gave us a preview of how verbs and objects can take over a newsfeed meaning that the most important verb this year might just be "build" (as in "build an entirely new application to support our brand on Facebook").

Google+ Is Not Going Away

If Facebook accounts for 1 in every 7 minutes spent online (according to comScore), that means there are six other minutes still up for grabs! New platforms and technologies continue to pop up on a seemingly daily basis. Last year saw the emergence of Tumblr and Pinterest with millions of users, not to mention the long-awaited arrival of Google+. Despite the steadily growing importance of Facebook and Twitter, you cannot ignore the potential of Google+ to impact your SEO and media business. That is, if Google is something that is important to your target consumer (hint: It is). Google+ just passed the 65 million user mark, with a quarter of that coming in December.

Investing in building and maintaining a Google+ Profile for your business or brand won't require as much time to "do right" as, say, Twitter, but that doesn't mean it should be a carbon copy of your Facebook Page, either. With different features to try out, take advantage of the opportunity to reach new and existing consumers with unique content. We can also expect Google to roll out an enhanced, integrated Analytics offering that will help us better understand the user journey across and beyond their network. We've been saying all along that you cannot evaluate the impact of New Media tactics using Old Media metrics, and Google is poised to take a giant step forward in answering our ROI questions in 2012.

Paid and Earned Media Work Best Together

The days of building your Facebook fan count and Twitter following without paid media support are over, plain and simple. This isn't really news. However, if your media strategy is strictly focused on fan acquisition to "get X million fans by the end of the year," then you are still missing out on the potential of what brand-consumer relationships can do for your business. Sure, total fans and followers matter, but only in the context of having as many active fans as possible.

What if I told you that less than 5% of your fans, on average, actually see any of your content and engage with it in some way? Wouldn't a richer goal be to increase your number of active fans from 5% to 10%? Only a media strategy that combines fan acquisition and fan engagement tactics can make this happen. Thanks to Facebook's improved Insights tool, enhanced premium ad targeting and Sponsored Stories can drive fan growth AND participation in 2012.

Social is Mobile and Mobile is Finally Social

It feels like we've been waiting and waiting for the "mobile revolution" to hit social marketing, when in reality a mobile evolution has already reached a critical mass.

Twitter has become a go-to platform on the "second screen" while in the home as well as on the primary screen when outside the home. According to comScore, Twitter grew 59% last year and now reaches more than 10% of internet users worldwide. Location-based services like Foursquare, photo quick-hits like Instagr.am and many other mobile applications require either Facebook or Twitter for amplification and sharing. Android and iPhone sales are driving Google+ and Twitter sign-ups at an astonishing rate. No matter what trends emerge in mobile, from check-ins to search to money transfer and payments, social is already at the center. Good marketing these days means giving your consumers what they want -- information, customer service, coupons, access, coupons, a voice, personalized experiences or just to be heard -- wherever they are.

Move Fast, Or Move Out of the Way

Giving your consumers what they want no matter where they are is synonymous for giving it to them when they want it. Doing so will require a paradigm shift in how you plan, act and react. In the time that you've been reading this, anywhere between one and a thousand people mentioned your product or brand in a social context. And while you may have missed it, their friends and the people they influence certainly did not. That is the power of social.

The old media-planning model where budgets and allocations are set a year in advance just doesn't work anymore. Consumers don't care when your budgets are finalized or when you have to have creative locked down. Thanks to social media, we have access to insights and data almost instantaneously, meaning real-time marketing is the new imperative. We must be flexible, agile and responsive, able shift directions, change the message, move money around and operationalize it all not in months, but in minutes.

In 2012, the integration of linear and digital will continue to change the rules and blur the lines across your marketing department. Thinking about social media marketing is now the responsibility of every marketer at every level within every company. Separate groups, teams and agencies won't cut it anymore because if you expect to change how consumers think about or purchase your product, then you have to change the way you market that product.

By: via AdAge

The Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation: Google map

2012-01-03T22:49:00.000Z

Classification: Creativity: 4,5; Will to buy(donate): 4,2; Empathy for the Brand: 4,3

Total: 4,3

Create your route here

This interactive website Kngfmaps.nl is based on the insight that a guidedog sheds light in the darkness for somebody with a visual handicap.

Advertising Agency: Selmore / Selmore Lynx, The Netherlands
Art Director: Tibor van Ginkel
Copywriter: Thomas Reinhold
Creative Programmer: Mark Vertegaal, Benjamin van Rossum
Design: Gabor de Man
Accounts: Mira Weijs, Anne-Marijn Bogers, Gert-Jan Guldemond

The Best and Worst Identities of 2011, Part I: The Worst

2011-12-20T20:19:00.001Z

via Brand New

If a marketeer doesn't have any design notions, they will probably end with a logo which will give them terrible numbers to work with.

12 - Swiss International Air Lines

11 - Edmont Valley Zoo

10 - EuroStar

09 - SportsNet

08 - petco

07 - Brand USA

06 - Hulbosch

05 - Sirius

04 - The Comedy Network

03 - JCPenny

02 - NetFlix/Qwikster

01 - Miami Marlins