Top Ten Online Marketing Campaigns of the Decade

GoViral have just published a list of the top ten online campaigns of the decade.

40 campaigns were shortlisted by the great and the good of the digital world and were then put to the vote (albeit only just over 1,000 people voted). What's perhpas most notable about the awards is that the top rated effort - Eepybird's Mento's & Diet Coke experiment - wasn't instigated by either brand proving two key points about the new media landscape:

1. It's easier than ever for independent content creators (or "people" as we like to call them) to say something about your brand which resonates with your consumer (also "people" by the way)

2. Those brands who are sharp enough to spot what's going on and run with it rather than trying to suppress it in some sort of pique - "I'm the brand manager/creative director/media strategist (delete as appropriate) - how dare you be more creative than me"! - can reap huge rewards.

Enjoy the creativity on show here and have a very Merry Christmas everyone.

Social Media tips from the OSS

Following on from yesterdays assertion that we should concentrate on the "social" rather than the "media" when discussing social media, here are some tips from America's wartime OSS on how to make your message sticky, easy to pass on and memorable (think propaganda / wartime misinformation).

Some of the most useful are also the most obvious:

keep it simple
keep it short
make it easy to remember
make it plausible

Thanks to my London colleagues for the heads up.

There is no such thing as Social Media

The New Raw Materials and Data Chemistry

View more documents from Chris Thorpe.

The most sense we've seen written about social media for some time in this presentation from Chris Thorpe of Jaggeree fame.

The key tenet - that social media is more about the social than it is about the media - rings absolutely true. It's just technology facilitating the way humans have communicated with each other since the dawn of time. Perhaps we should stop talking about social media and start talking about how we build better relationships between our organisations and their publics?

Thanks to Neil Perkin at Only Dead Fish for pointing us to this.

Font Synthesizer

Not the most obvious link up but the Meek FM controller manipulates fonts in the same way as a synth manipulates sound. In fact, it synthesizes sound at the same time as it creates fonts.

We've yet to work out any practical application of this but it's really cool in a geeky kinda way.

Google Goggles

In the beginning there was search.

Then it took to the streets when we could search from our mobiles.

Then we ejoyed the randomness of voice-search on our iPhones.

Now Google goes one step further with the arrival of Google Goggles on the Android platform.

Take a picture with your mobile phone camera and Google will use this to search for relevant content. It's far from perfect yet but we can see this going far.

After all, a picture paints a thousand words.

The Long Tail vs. The Blockbuster

Interesting article in The Economist recently discussing the rise and rise of the Blockbuster in opposition to the theory of The Long Tail proposed by Chris Anderson.

Of course, as usual it's not a case of either or. Rather it's both and with the two in balance as any power law curve would demonstrate.

Both the mass market and the niche have potential for brands as long as they understand how to efficiently exploit it.

Social Media for Social Marketing

Hats off to the TDA (Training and Development Agency for Schools) in England who earlier this year set up Facebook pages curated by (apparently real-life) teachers, Elizabth Doyle and Kaol Rasarathnam - http://www.facebook.com/teaching and http://www.facebook.com/teach - to answer questions for people interested in getting into teaching.

Not only do the sites combined have over 6,000 fans, they are active with both those looking for advice on how to enter teaching as well as current teachers giving advice. Admittedly, we've not seen actual results in terms of new teachers signing up but it's a nice use of the platform and well targeted to the demographic they're trying to recruit.

What's holding other Government agencies back from engaging with citizens in similar fashion in an environment which is made for dynamic question and answer sessions?

Razorfish FEED - Digital Brand Experience Report

Thanks to the guys over at BBH Labs for bringing the Razorfish FEED report to our attention.

This US based report is in its 3rd year and, while using US data only, it has equal relevance to us on the other side of the pond.

Not only do they highlight effectively how consumers interaction with brands is changing in the digital world, they also very generously give away not only a PDF of the report but also free access to the data and charts. Open source or what?

They are truly walking the walk.

Blogging Students

An interesting piece recently in Harvard Business Review highlighted the sensitivity most major client organisations feel about their brand and the growing sense that they are losing control of it as social media continues its inexorable rise (Facebook reached 350 Million users recently).

Brands have only ever lived in the minds of consumers - unless they were burnt into the side of a cow. Interesting then to see this piece in the New York Times on how MIT is using it's strongest advocates (or, potentially, detractors should things not be as rosy as the official brochures claim),students, as official bloggers. Great to see an organisation confident enough in its service provision and strong enough in its conviction to give free reign to these ambassadors.

Better to be involved in the conversation that is already happening about your brand than sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will all blow over.

The Economics of Free

What happens when advances in technology allow many things to be produced for more or less nothing? And what happens when those things are then made available to the consumer for free? Think how mp3's have affected CD sales or how Gillette give away razors to sell blades.

Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired and author of "The Long Tail", talks about the thinking behind his new book "Free: The Future of Radical Price" at Big Think. Easier, although less fulfilling, than buying and reading the book.

What could you give away for free that would hook consumers to your client's brand to create future selling opportunities?