Ad Gallery of Horrors

In a few hours the streets will be cluttered with little ghouls and goblins tricking and treating for candies and treats. Confectionery companies begin prepping for this day months in advance in anticipation of the gold rush that October 31st brings.

Although the spirit of the event extends much further than just to children and the one night of door to door visits. In fact, many adults, including myself look forward to this day. A day where changing your identity is only limited by your own imagination and creativity is nurtured and rewarded.

Many marketers realize the effect that this yearly event has on people both young and old and try to capitalize on this time as an opportunity to have some fun and let the creative juices flow.

In the "spirit" of Halloween, here are some great ads from around the globe.

Happy Halloween everyone and make sure to look out for kids on the streets!

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Catalonian National Theatre: Heart




Heineken



MovieStar Skeletons



Burger King



This Halloween Don't Drink and Drive

The Reverse Graffiti Project

I came across an interesting viral video which I believe was well executed. It's a three minute long video of a street artist who uses Clorox's Green Works natural cleaning product and some stencils to create "green" themed designs on the walls of San Francisco's Broadway tunnel.



The intention was to illustrate how dirty our surrounding environment truly is and how we have become immune to it to the point where it is acceptable and goes unnoticed.

Product branding is very subtle and clean in its placement in the video as well as on the Reverse Graffiti website. This documentary project / microsite is a good demonstration of how a compelling concept well executed does not necessarily have to be very flashy in order to achieve its objectives.

The Cure to the Falling Sky Syndrome

In a time of a major credit crunch, financial and job uncertainty, political elections and ultimately mass hysteria about what tomorrow will bring, marketers need to explore more cost effective options to speak with consumers. A financial analyst interviewed on CBC said it best in terms of the population's current fears, "It's as if everyone is waiting around for something to happen".

Many of us are guilty of this I'm sure, including myself, although there must reach a point where leaders need to take charge and well...lead...by example and show confidence in order to turn things around. I understand that it is FAR more complicated than this and that it will take a substantial shift in societal perception of the global economy.

This does not mean that marketers should simply step back and wait for the dust to settle while simultaneously looking for ways to decrease costs and increase efficiencies. On the contrary, (you thought dear Watson didn't you?) when times get tough, it's time to get even more focused and that much more creative.

An article titled Inventing During a Recession clearly demonstrates that consumers are still willing to spend although they will now be more aware of how they are spending their money. The key is to understand how their needs may have changed and to simply communicate to those needs. Examples in the article refer to different mind states that people go through during difficult economic times such as nesting (feeling of uncertainty causes people to want to seek comfort at home), sense of competition (job market) and survivor (minimalist mentality) to name a few.

Needless to say there are a million ways to develop products or services to accommodate to consumers' rapidly changing needs or by simply listening to what consumers are looking for when crying, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!".

Isn't this what we do as marketers anyways?

Marketers could help lead the charge in restoring consumer confidence by facing our own personal fears and by continuing in doing what we do best...innovate, create and communicate.

"If You Build It, They Might Not Come"

The term social media and Web 2.0 are constantly thrown around with just about everyone in the marketing world having heard about it at one point or another. Some claim to understand it and some claim to believe it to be the silver bullet that will rake in unheard of amounts of money with minimal to no cost. Unfortunately this is a frequent misconception.

Social media is a complex web of social networks, advertisers, blogs, micro blogs, communities, podcasts, videos, photos, news and much more. The first thing that generally comes to mind when thinking about social media is usually Facebook, MySpace or YouTube. A simple video or fan page is setup, a few e-mails are sent out and voila...the web will certainly do its magic and the modo, "if you build it, they will come" should prevail resulting in a successful campaign. For many who have taken this approach, they have learned the hard way that short sightedness rarely delivers favourable responses while well thought out strategies may be more intensive and exhausting during the planning stages, the results can be far more rewarding.

The problem is education. The internet is filled with information and new tools are being created and introduced everyday allowing people to aggregate their sources of knowledge as well as their online tools.

Keeping pace with the evolving web is critical to any successful campaign. This means becoming deeply immersed into the social media culture and embracing its many intricacies. Connecting with others who share the same passion and understand this realm is important in order to expand ones knowledge reach in order to gain a competitive advantage at a quicker pace.

Finally, taking the time to fully define who it is that you are trying to reach, what is it that you want to tell them, how do you plan to tell them and why should anyone care? It amazes me how often these questions go unanswered prior to launching a campaign!

Red Bull Goes Social

Engaging a young demographic around their brand doesn't seem to have ever been a problem for Red Bull. With exciting sporting events and a loyal following, the brand truly has done a remarkable job in withstanding competitive pressures, especially considering the limited number of products that the company has to offer. Two to be exact (Red Bull and Sugar Free Red Bull) but who really drinks sugar free anyways?

So how do you take your brand to the next level and motivate an audience to absorb more marketing communications and to increase their exposure to your brand culture? Red Bull’s answer to that question was to incorporate Facebook Connect on a Flash driven website. The Facebook platform extension provides viewers the ability to login to their Facebook account through the Red Bull environment and effectively communicate with their own friends who are part of their Facebook community.

The feature allows you to comment on the site while having your comments simultaneously appear in your Facebook profile. It provides an entire social community to become notified and active within an environment that a trusted peer finds interesting. The value of such an offering has huge potential and I will definitely be speaking about it in a later post.

Well done Red Bull!

Can I Vote? How Voting Can Make the Internet Better

Creating compelling blog posts can be a challenge. What do you write about that people actually care to read? Given all that is going on in the news nowadays with financial crisis, wars and elections it’s difficult to capture the attention of readers through all of the distractions.

I recently came across a short instructional video on how web content writers can use Google Trends to drive traffic to their websites. The concept is broken down into what is called the Trends Traffic Formula and is based on the premise that content can be created based on what people are searching for on the web. What a great concept!

So how can voting make the internet a better place, you ask? In an attempt to test the concept I used the Google Trends tool to find terms that people are currently searching for and found that "Can I Vote" ranked rather high. Considering U.S. presidential and Canadian Prime Minister candidates have been tapping into the social media world as part of their communication strategies, I figured this would be a good long tailed keyword to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach.

In essence, such an exercise allows content editors to gain a better understanding of what people are actively searching for and are interested in finding. It is a form of high level market research that is non intrusive and is providing what people want without them even knowing that they've actually asked for it.

Web users are providing valuable answers into what it is that they want and this is always what marketers are looking for. In the end, web users are finding what they're looking for and marketers are giving them what they want (hopefully).

Stephen Harper Must Hate Facebook

The races are tightening up both in Canada and the United States with election dates nearing. Albeit, many still remain undecided on which camp they will lend their trust to for the next four years. Concerned voters are turning to the web to get information and more importantly to social media to join or even lead a political charge.

On the CBC news the other night they mentioned a Facebook vote-swapping group that has gained a lot of attention.

"The online group, titled 'Anti-Harper Vote Swap Canada,' is trying to match Canadians who are willing to swap votes to keep the Conservatives from winning a majority in the Oct. 14 federal election."(source:Election officials poke around Facebook vote-swapping group)

The group has picked up steam (well over 10,000 members as of this post) and has gained plenty of media attention in the country including from Elections Canada who have determined that online vote swapping is not breaking any Canadian laws.
The group offers the following example of how it works:

"Let’s pretend I’m an NDP supporter in the riding of Winnipeg South. Seeing as the Tories only managed to beat the Liberals by less than 150 votes in the 2006 election, the Liberals almost surely have the best chance of winning. I use the “anti-Harper Vote Swap” facebook application to indicate that I’m an NDP supporter who is willing to vote for anyone but the Conservatives. Even if you don’t know the latest polling data in your riding, we can help."

"We will then match you up with another member of the group (in this example, a Liberal in a strong NDP riding who is willing to swap). Assuming we find you a match, you’ll receive a message a few days before the election letting you know that your vote can be swapped."

Anti-Harper Vote Swap Canada consists of a website (www.voteswapcanada.ca) and a Facebook group with a corresponding Facebook widget allowing members to swap their votes with others. It's tough to say how the results will pan out although it would be interesting to see how social media including Anti-Harper swap and any other online social channels impacted the final results.

Whatever happens, let's hope it brings positive change!

**Please note that the views of the Anti-Harper swap group are not necessarily the same as my own...I still haven't decided which way to vote yet!

Are You Who You Think You Are?

In the last post I spoke about the importance of personal branding and the sociological considerations when attempting to communicate your key personal brand attributes. Once you've become active and have begun to establish yourself, how do you know that what you've been communicating is actually what people have been absorbing?

This is a fundamental question to ask when evaluating brand communications although many of us do not take the time to understand these measures and to identify where the gaps lie. I found a simple tool that helps you describe your personal brand. It's called 360 Reach and can be a pretty powerful tool if used properly.

It asks a few short questions including one that asks you to select 10 brand attributes (from an extensive list) that best describe you. The results provide a little twist that help you to immediately identify some of your own perceptual gaps with the option to send the same questionnaire to your clients and/or colleagues to better understand how your personal brand is perceived through their eyes.

The questionnaire is free with a premium pay option to send the test to others. It's a quick, cheap and effective way to identify some areas for improvement towards strengthening your brand.

Taking it Personal

The concept of personal branding has been around for quite some time now. It has traditionally been an exercise that has generally involved an extended amount of time to evolve.

Not that now is that much different. Although the communication channel and the numerous mediums in which one can deliver their own personal brand message has changed dramatically. With new social media properties "popping up" every day, new opportunities are presenting themselves at a rapid pace.

The challenge is how to digest all that is available and how to filter through the clutter in an attempt to speak to an audience that may be relevant to your needs. I found the eBook called "The Essential Guide to Social Media" by Brian Solis to be rather informative as he spoke about the connection between the Social Sciences and how they relate to Social Media.

A key takeaway from the book is that in order to be successful in the Web 2.0 world it's important to understand the difference between listening and research. To listen means to understand and to submerse yourself into the culture. When researching, us as marketers can have a tendency to push marketing messages onto people believing that it's what they want to hear and as a result they will buy our products or services. The latter is less time consuming although the former could be more rewarding in the long run.

By noting the difference it becomes easier to create a social map. Brian Solis in the mentioned book above does a great job of this as well. By visually mapping out the social landscape, it becomes easier to understand where you should be focusing your efforts and how you could potentially overlap in some areas to reinforce your messaging.

What is Strategy Social?

The challenge:

Create a compelling first post that will resonate with readers. Readers with different views, different perspectives and different levels of experience. Introduce a missing element to a vast community of intelligent professionals and provide them with a reason to come back, to connect, to participate.

How does one approach such a daunting task?

The answer is one post at a time...

I welcome you to Strategy Social and encourage you to learn, to share and to grow.