I recently received an email from Piers Fawkes, asking me to pass along a little information about a conference he is hosting: PSFK Good Ideas Salon coming up January 30th in London.
Typically, I wouldn’t just pass along information just becuase someone sends me an email. I am doing so now for a number of reasons.
I have seen Piers speak at a conference before and he seems to always have some really interesting things to pass along.
The line-up of speakers really looks amazing and I am sad that I won’t be able to attend myself.
Perhaps the most important reason, I have followed PSFK for years. Piers and his team have consistently delivered interesting and relevant content and never asked anything from me in return. Until now, of course.
It is that last point that I find interesting, and it seems like something all brands in the social media world could take a lesson from. You never know when you are going to need a favor, or who you will need/want help from; so treat everyone as best as you can all the time. Of course, the odds are that PSFK doesn’t really need my help to sell tickets, but what if they did? Or, what if they had some sort of crisis where they needed to rally support, I would probably be there to help out. This is becuase we already have an established relationship, and through all the content and inspiration they have given me over the years I feel I owe them a little something in return. I see it a little like Don Corleone from the Godfather, when he says, “Someday – and that day may never come – I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.” As a company/brand you may never need a favor from your consumers, but itsn’t it worth treating them with respect and doing nice things for them, knowing that if that day does come they’ll be there.
Full disclosure: I am a complete Mac Fanboy. It seems to me that in recent years Apple and Steve Jobs have rarely come up with a miss when it comes to introducing new products. This is why I spent most of my day yesterday following live coverage of Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference on sites like Engadget and Mac Rumors and subsequently watching video of the keynote later in the day when it was posted.
While I was watching the keynote I started to think about how Apple seems to pull it all together, and I mean all: product design and performance, store design, distribution plus interesting advertising and communication. The question that entered my mind was “how can you tell?”
Brand Metrics
There are brand metrics that offer a really good status indicator, but don’t always indicate future performance or how others feel about a brand. For instance, one standard measure is brand awareness. I, like many others know the Hummer brand, but don’t count on me buying one in the future or even having positive emotions for the brand.
Stock Price
Stock price could prove to be a good indicator. Apple’s stock price has skyrocketed in recent years. Unfortunately there are many financial maneuvers that typically wouldn’t affect the brand, but could affect the stock price. This also seems to be a much more long term indicator, but not necessarily a short term indicator (yesterday during the keynote from Steve Jobs where he introduced the new iPhone, Apple’s stock price was down at least $6.
Fetishized Products
While certainly not scientific, I have noticed that Apple gets some seriously amorous talk online. There are several blogs devoted to rumors and news about the company. Think Secret (which has been shut down), Apple Insider, Mac Rumors, and even Engadget just to name a few. I understand that online conversations happen about many companies and products, but there seem to be a few products that stand out above the rest and generate much more affectionate conversations. Take for example the “unboxing” that has happened online for virtually every new Apple product, here is one for the MacBook Air.
Apple isn’t the only company getting this kind of treatment. Activate Drinks was a product that I saw getting some “buzz” and popping up on a few blogs hereandthere. Then NOTCOT did an exhaustive post on the vitamin drink and it’s packaging. This seems quite similar to the posts unboxing Apple products. The GM Volt, plug-in hybrid concept, gets its own blog from a customer advocate just like the Apple blogs. These are just a few examples, that represent a more in-depth level than just casual online conversations about brands, or “buzz”.
While, I wouldn’t base my agency compensation on producing these kinds of results it does seem that whether customers are fetishizing your products could be a good anecdotal indicator of how you are doing from a holistic perspective. Customers take everything into account rather than just looking at one element of a brand at a time.
I just finished reading this article about Amazon’s move to offer outsourced computing services (online storage, infrastructure computing services and even real-world fulfillment services) all on a pay for what you use model.
For laymen like me, what this means is that instead of needing tens- or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an Internet startup off the ground you could start by uploading your code to a server for 10 cents/hour and storing your files for 15 cents/gigabyte/month. The best part is it is completely scalable, so as your project takes off, it costs you more (you should be making more money, too) and Amazon makes more money. This gives web start-ups a chance to get started without sacrificing large chunks of their companies to venture capitalists, and tying their capital up in computing power that will quickly become outdated. On the other hand it gives Amazon a way to sell computing power and infrastructure services, to a vast array of start-ups and when one takes-off both parties win. For instance, as the article says, one heavy user is spending five-figures/week on Amazon Web Services.
This, to me, is just another example of our computing power moving into the ether. Where historically we have needed to buy software (ensure it will run on our machines) then store any data we created on that same machine, where it could only be accessed there unless physically being transferred to another machine. Now that game is changing, where my computer used to be everything it is now transitioning to be an access point to connect me with my data and applications that I have strewn about the Internet. This may sound a little odd, but should benefit from the clarity of a few examples.
Banking
Online financial management tools are so prevalent they would be easy to overlook. If you think about it though, none of the data you create and work with there is stored on your computer, allowing you to access it from anywhere, yet it still offers powerful applications. For instance you can check you balance, transfer money from one account to another and even set up recurring bill payments just by moving numbers around in the ether. Beyond just managing finances you can also use these tools to build wealth, buy and selling stocks via a portfolio manager. (Bonus points if you use your profits to acquire the services of a clown, which you will undoubtedly, underestimate the creepiness of, as the E-trade commercial suggests.)
If you haven’t seen or heard about Google Docs, check out the video. You can upload your documents, (Word, PowerPoint of Excel) and work on them collaboratively with a select group. More importantly though, you can also create the documents online, without needed a word processing, spreadsheet or slide creation program. Essentially you could work within a more collaborative existence without ever needing to purchase Microsoft Office of for that matter a computer, just so long as you have access to one and a Google account.
Typical Word, Excel and PowerPoint junkies like myself aren’t the only ones that can benefit from the shift to purely online access point applications. This trend is showing up in the world of the pixel pushers as well. Adobe’s Photoshop Express is being beta tested currently and allows users to upload photos and utilize a limited set of tools typically only available to those who have purchased the program and loaded it on their own computer.
There are other examples and I expect to continue to see many more. Another proof point that this trend is starting to take hold exists with the machines themselves. If all the computing power, data storage and applications now exist in the ether then what will we need? Plain and simple, all you really need then is Access. Just enough computing power to get you connected and enough storage to cache the sties you visit. Lo and behold, it appears Steve Jobs sees the trend coming and has given us the MacBook Air (the name alone says a lot).
This computer isn’t as fast, and doesn’t contain the massive storage capabilities of some of Apple’s other laptops. What it lacks in brute force, it makes up for in compact size and lightweight portability. I mean, this computer doesn’t even have a CD-ROM, and instead allows users to access cd-drives from other computers – you guessed it – though the ether.
These are just a few examples and there will likely be more with increased effort and technological advances. Hooking everyone up to a fiber optic connection wouldn’t hurt either.
Two days ago I put up a post and recognized even as I was writing it that it would likely bump the traffic to my website. Sure enough. The very next day was, in fact, my best day ever. It feels kinda like a cheap trick…but effective. I guess, if you are looking for a new spokesperson for your product, you might want to consider the power of Lil’ Wayne.
I recently found out via The Smoking Section, that according to compete.com Lil Wayne ranks second among search terms on YouTube, right behind Sex. Not sure what that says about our society, but man that is some serious power for Lil Wayne. According to these results, if Family Guy were to create a remix of Chris Brown’s No Air, featuring Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne then YouTube may explode from the people drooling on their keyboards waiting to watch that video.
Another interesting cultural data tool is lexicon from Facebook. It monitors the messages on users’ walls and then keeps tabs on the usage over time. When I check Lil Wayne’s power with this, he pales in comparison with sex. This just means that Facebook users aren’t chatting about Lil Wayne as much as the other topic. It is interesting to note that the lowest amount of Facebook messages pertaining to sex occurred on the pious day of December 25th.
What is interesting to me is that just by writing about this subject I may get more hits to my blog. So, I am going to post a chart of my current site visitation and then check back later to see if it makes a noticeable difference.
It seems that Corky from Melbourne, Australia would agree with my previous post about the beauty of creating mixtapes. You can read my previous post here.
This is a follow-up post, to share my thoughts about three similar online campaigns. If you didn’t see the previous posts you can read about the campaigns here:
This video is absolutely spectacular and makes you want to watch and share with friends. This intro video appears on ever major video hosting website, lifelounge, youtube, neatorama, milk and cookies. The most popular posting of this video on youtube has over 60,000 views. Not only does it build great hype for the skate video of Lakai’s team within the skate community:
Best skate vid intro EVER. EPIC! Definitely going to buy this.
fueledbyrock
dudE I seriously when i first saw this cried in amazement
PalEntertainment
this is so f-ing amazing. i can’t stop watching it. i want to implant this in my brain and loop it forever.
bluemobb
Its appeal also extends beyond the world of skating:
I’m not into skateboarding, but i saw this on the Jackass Takeover and it’s AWESOME!
LuchaBoyYT
The video solidifies Lakai’s and even director Spike Jonze’s place in this subculture, but also intros a little known band and helps them get some more exposure
whats the music thats playing called? This video is awsome. I saw on the takeover too, and i havnt been able to stop watching since. The stunts are amazing.
iluvShaneKippel
The music is, m83 – lower your eyelids to die with the sun
KidBuuRulez
Amazing trailer.And M83 are my new band I’am listening too.
DJSouthernTech
The Bad
The video doesn’t appear on the official Lakai website, so there isn’t an opportunity to embed it into a website or blog. You can only use user uploaded videos from sites like youtube. Also, the video was really created as the intro to the longer form of the skate video and because of this has no information about release date or where to purchase.
The Ugly
Several of the youtube links display this warning:
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Lakai, Ltd.
The Southern Planner
First, this video is amazing from an artistic perspective. Spike Jonze does a great job of making it really interesting to watch and provides great pass along value. However, by not putting this clip on their website Lakai is really missing out on a lot of the traffic it could be generating. Perhaps unintentionally, this video does serve as a great promo for the full DVD, regardless of location, so I would say Lakai is actually hurting themselves by pulling the videos. In the end. M83 may be the biggest winner, with the video serving as a great music video and exposing their song to loads of potential new listeners.
According to his artist biography on CMT.com Toby Keith received his first guitar at the age of 8 and, after a brief stint in the United States Football League, turned to music full time at the age of 23. Due to this early start in the industry I doubt that Toby has much, if any, first-hand experience as a blue-collar worker. That just makes the fact that he wrote the Willie Nelson song Tired all the more impressive. Having grown up in a hardworking blue-collar household I can say that Toby does a fantastic job of capturing the accepting, constant and persistent nature that pervades this life. I only hope that I can capture audience truths this well in advertising I help create.
Song:Tired Album: It Always Will Be Artist: Willie Nelson Writer: Toby Keith
My name is Jackson, I was named after my father
I followed in his footsteps down here to this factory
And I ain’t complainin’ wouldn’t waste my breath to bother
This work ain’t hard it’s only borin’ as can be
I married Rebecca back in seventy-seven
And I still love her and I guess she loves me too
We go to church on Sunday ‘cause we want to go to heaven
Me and my family ain’t that how you’re supposed to do?
But I’m tired, Lord, I’m tired
Life is wearin’ me smooth down to the bone
No rest for the weary you just move on
And I’m tired
Only missed six days and nights of twenty years of working
Money went to taxes and these bills I’ve paid on time
Raise I got six months ago don’t meet the cost of living
Selling my body for these nickels and these dimes
The smell of Becky’s coffee rolled me out of bed this morning
I showered and I shaved and dressed and pulled my work boots on
Waked in the kitchen, and she was starin’ out of the window
And the way she said good morning
Made me ask, “Is something wrong?”
She said, “I’m tired, I woke up tired”
Life is wearin’ me smooth down to the bone
No rest for the weary you just move on
And I guess we’ll just keep goin’ till we’re gone
And I’m tired, Lord, I’m tired
Said, I’m tired, Lord, I’m tired
Southern Planner 