Why not have a little fun?  Volkswagen has launched an effort to put the FUN back in to our lives with Thefuntheory.com  This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.

In a world where everything is sold as a task, VW is looking for FUN solutions to world problems. Could this piano staircase get you to take the stairs instead of the escalator?   Watch and see the transformation.

What I love about this "Social" experiment is that it is thought and action provoking. VW is facilitating world FUN, through consumer engagement with its branded theory. One of the boldest parts of the campaign is the subtly of the VW branding.   Each one of the FUN entries is ended with a VW logo. Thats it!  But that's a lot when you consider that just one of the videos has 7,301,080 views. If VW attempted to pay for this type of reach it would cost them millions. 

Earned media comes with risky yet good ideas. (risky - because no other brand in the category is doing anything like this.  Good, because they let go of their brand, use emotional and behavioral insights and allow the consumer to have a bit of fun with the brand.)  They have done an amazing job of owning fun in their category while extending a global conversation that could inspire others.

If you have a way to take the mundane or simple and make it FUN you should submit it for a prize.  Your entry can be presented with a written explanation plus a visualization of the idea itself. It could be a simple sketch, photos or a film of a prototype.  Put the fun back in to the world with VW at http://thefuntheory.com.

A great piece of new research on Gen Y woman was released by PopSugar Media (www.popsugar.com).  The two-tier study revealed that Generation Y women are the most influential age group when it comes to defining trends in popular culture. Gen Y women, in turn, are discovering new brands and getting most of their style inspiration and product recommendations from blogs and social media.

WhyYWomen

This report examines the Gen Y women’s sphere of influence of lifestyle trends, how technology and social media help them expand their sphere of influence, and how marketers can target and communicate with this group.

The survey uncovered some critical Dos and Don’ts when Marketing to Gen Y Women:

1. Do realize context matters. Gen Y women aren’t likely to click on your ad, but they are influenced by advertising nonetheless. The context they encounter an ad in largely determines their trust in a brand. Trust in a site translates into trust in an advertiser’s brand, particularly for brands they’re less familiar with. 
2. Do be honest. For this generation, transparency is a form of currency. Gen Y women are increasingly comfortable broadcasting their lives on the Internet. This is also a generation that’s come of age the same time that reality TV, confessional memoirs, and personal blogs have become commonplace. They’ve become accustomed to a heightened level of transparency among their peers; they now expect it from brands. 
3. Do engage in dialogue with your audience or customers. While it is somewhat trite to call online marketing a conversation, marketers ignore that fact at their own risk. Smart marketers monitor the conversation, respond directly to tweets that mention them, and allow their customers to converse with each other. Gen Y women have already redefined authenticity, basing it on the opinions of their online peers. For marketers to connect with Gen Y women, they need to connect with their peers, rather than privileged experts, such as celebrity endorsements or third-party seals of approval. Additionally, Gen Y women respond favorably to being treated like a VIP. Engaging them in dialogue (through Twitter, contests, or competitions) helps them feel a more personal connection to a brand. 
4. Do integrate your media across multiple channels. Gen Y women are multimodal. They move between the Web and their mobile phones with ease, and, unlike Gen Y men (who have all but abandoned TV), they still watch television. Marketers need to be consistent in their communication across multiple platforms, since there are manifold opportunities to connect with consumers. 
5. Don’t get too comfortable. When it comes to their social networking sites, Gen Y have proven themselves to be fickle. They’ve already moved from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook. Smart marketers need to monitor where Gen Y women are moving toward online, and react accordingly when the next network hits.
6. Don’t ignore Twitter. While there has been media coverage lately claiming Gen Y is less devoted to Twitter than their older cohorts, Gen Y women are using it differently than other generations. They understand it is a promotional platform and subscribe to the feeds of brands that provide “exclusive” info—new products, new information, links to coupons, and deals only offered to followers. 
7. Don’t dominate the conversation. While marketing to Gen Y women is a multidirectional dialogue, marketers need to be wary of dominating the conversation. This is a generation that expects to be heard. In focus groups, many of the participants claimed that the quickest way to get them to unsubscribe, unfollow, or unfriend a brand’s communication is to bombard them.  While Gen Y women want to connect with their favorite brands, marketers need to toe the line between relevant info and spam.
8. Don’t underestimate the marketing savvy of Gen Y women. Gen Y women, perhaps more than previous generations, understand the value of their personal information and attention. If marketers expect Gen Y women to share their preferences, ideas, and attention with them, they need to offer quid pro quo to those consumers. While it may take the form of discounts on products or access to exclusive products or deals, it might also take the form of recognition for contributions—using a customer-submitted photo or video in advertising or featuring customer-submitted ideas on an official blog or website.

After reading through the entire study, there are a number of critical findings.

1. Gen X woman are watching Gen Y ladies
2. Viewing a banner ad (not clicking-through) can be enough to build brand credibility.
3. It's all about them and how cool, smart and new your product can make them.
4. Personalization is the price of entry.
5. A social strategy is not your 30 sec spot on Facebook or YouTube
6. Be portable to their mobile phones.
7. Context is king.
8. Recognize their contributions to your brand and you expect future purchases.

The LA Philharmonic launched a spectacular micro site celebrating the arrival of Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. The attention to social details is quite amazing.

What I love about the site located at http://www.laphil.com/gustavo, is that it features so much share-able content. My favorite example is this video of Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, celebrities, and LA residents welcome Gustavo Dudamel to Los Angeles in a video shot at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Santa Monica beach, the Griffith Observatory and other L.A. landmarks.

Check out the site at http://www.laphil.com/gustavo

Coke is attempting an interesting social experiment using Facebook Connect.  Are there other's out there that look just like you?  Could their be an impostor JP-B?  

The only way to know is for you to connect with the new Coke Facial Profiler site which seems to be building a repository of social images that will eventually find your twin.

Check it out this cool use of FB Connect at http://www.cocacolazero.com/index.jsp#/facialprofiler/

Want to see what your Flash Forward looks like???  Go to http://www.flashforwardexperience.com and click on the Facebook connect button. 

The site uses your public Facebook information and friend data to give you a flash into my future.  The text to voice integration got my last name right and spoke to me. (it sounded better than most real people!) 

This is a lovely way to use people's public info to personalize a web experience.

It would have been interesting for them to have included a predictive algorithm to "predict" who you will be friends with in the future.  They could do this by looking at your friends and looking at common friend characteristics.

Get your flash forward at http://www.flashforwardexperience.com

Today I received an email linking me to StopWritingOnMyWall.com.  When I got to the site I realized that I was sent to a site for the Social Media Addicts Association.  I got a chuckle, looked around the room and then tweeted.  After a few clicks around I realized it was a stealth/spoof campaign from Sony. 

This seems like an odd way to market a product that facilitates social interaction. Check out the SMAA video.

One rule of thumb has always been to never poke fun at the audience you are marketing too. But this was just fun. I liked the content at the confessions link.  In the confess section they ask the you to, "Let it all out! and  Upload your own confession of social media addiction to YouTube and send us the link moderator@stopwritingonmywall.com."  This seems like a cheap way to get people talking about their addiction.  What is a bit confusing to me is how I link it to purchasing a new machine which will further my addition.  According to the visitor counter 638,677 people have visited the site.  Clearly we all have some type of addiction.

Do you think Sony will turn off its core audience or do you think it will win one that is tired of all the social media hype?

What is it?  At first glance you may think it is something out of Star Wars.  I was in the back rooms of Flickr when I heard the term Astotagging. A quick search revealed that it is a new behavior that professional and amateur astrology photographers are participating in.  A “blind astrometry server” is a program which monitors the Astrometry group on Flickr, looking for new photos of the night sky. It then analyzes each photo, and from the unique star positions shown it figures out what part of the sky was photographed and what interesting planets, galaxies or nebulae are contained within. Not only does the photographer get a high-quality description of what’s in their photo, but the main Astrometry.net project gets a new image to add to its storehouse of knowledge.

Introducing astrotags from Royal Observatory Greenwich on Vimeo.

This is one of the coolest uses of Flickr's groups and open API that I’ve ever seen. WOW!

Can your IBM think pad fly?

I love a flash mob. Some say they are sooo done. I am not one of those people. I have to say that this flash mob really brought a smile to my face when I realized that it was another T-Mobile event. With all the horrible crap going on in the world it is nice when a brand just wants you to have a smile and share it.

When I saw what T-Mobile did on Oprah - I was blown away.  If you watched Oprah's 24th season kickoff party, which took place in on the mag mile in Chicago you could can see how people shared an incredible experience that makes you want to smile.  This is really content worth sharing.  (just search YouTube and see how many videos were made)

Do you remember the T-Mobile dance at Liverpool Street Station for T-Mobile's Life's for Sharing campaign? And who can forget the Trafalgare square karaoke, where 13,500 people sang Hey Jude. It seems to me that T-mobile's flash mob still works.

Have you had a recent flash mob experience that you want to share?  If so leave me a comment.

The Obama brand has inspired many. A real test of a brand, is whether it inspires innovation in artistry. There is no doubt that Obama's Design Director, Scott Thomas, used art and design to bring America together while commenting on their grass roots messages in a visual way.

Today you can revisit the art of the Obama campaign in a 360-page book that reveals the story behind the design of the campaign. The book also features many of the unofficial grassroots art work created in support of Obama.

My favorite part of this book launch is that Thomas is funding the production of the book using Kickstarter, an online funding platform that supports creative endeavors.

Designing Obama from mas / menos on Vimeo.

Get your copy today at http://www.designing-obama.com

The hottest thing on YouTube today isn't smosh or Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame Speech, it happens to be Serena Williams' temper. Last night Serena Williams managed to aide in her own defeat by losing her cool at the US Open woman's semi-final match.

The videos of Serena's hot temper have gone viral on YouTube. Perhaps it was over shadowed this morning by the NFL's opening weekend coverage in the mainstream media.  One version of Serena's video has received 67,000+ views since last night.  It’s also a climbing topic on Twitter.