Results tagged “marketing” from experiential thoughts
So the MadMen characters' Twitter accounts were turned back on after a bit of confusion last weekend. It appears that AMC's online marketing team at Deep Focus chatted with the AMC team and convinced them that "everything was cool". As much as it is being argued that these are "fan generated" they do seem to have an amazingly coherent voice with the show and one wonders if they might not in fact be agency/production/marketing generated. No matter, they are an interesting experiment/extension and I'm interested to see how they evolve and survive over time.
That all said, there does seem to be an expansion of the number of characters twittering, including several that one has to question the "reality" of them actually using twitter. Would Betty Draper (@bettydraper) or Francine Hanson (@francine_hanson) have really used twitter? One of the nice things about the usage within the agency was the rate of adoption and difference in usage patterns. To suddenly have the crew of characters from outside that community join and adopt in full force makes me wonder about the faithfulness of the adoption to the character profiles. Betty's character is not exactly prone to discussing things in public -- at a minimum her account should have been set to private, a bit of a party line that you'd have to ask to join.
But this is a grand experimental world we're all playing in, so I can't fault those behind this experiment too much. It will be interesting to see how this all resolves.
The other odd thing from this is the appearance of several Twitter accounts of real but deceased individuals from the MadMen era. Bill Bernback has appeared as (@billbernbach) with tweets referencing Don Draper. This is a bit of a tread into dangerous territory, especially if it is agency/marketer conducted, as the estate of Bernbach and the current DDB Legal team probably have some serious issues with this.
So where does the line get drawn?
All things to ponder for the lawyers and practitioners...and all things I will ponder here in the coming weeks.
Thoughts?
That all said, there does seem to be an expansion of the number of characters twittering, including several that one has to question the "reality" of them actually using twitter. Would Betty Draper (@bettydraper) or Francine Hanson (@francine_hanson) have really used twitter? One of the nice things about the usage within the agency was the rate of adoption and difference in usage patterns. To suddenly have the crew of characters from outside that community join and adopt in full force makes me wonder about the faithfulness of the adoption to the character profiles. Betty's character is not exactly prone to discussing things in public -- at a minimum her account should have been set to private, a bit of a party line that you'd have to ask to join.
But this is a grand experimental world we're all playing in, so I can't fault those behind this experiment too much. It will be interesting to see how this all resolves.
The other odd thing from this is the appearance of several Twitter accounts of real but deceased individuals from the MadMen era. Bill Bernback has appeared as (@billbernbach) with tweets referencing Don Draper. This is a bit of a tread into dangerous territory, especially if it is agency/marketer conducted, as the estate of Bernbach and the current DDB Legal team probably have some serious issues with this.
So where does the line get drawn?
- Is impersonating fictional characters as a fan "OK" in the name of audience engagement?
- Does it matter if there is a formal agency or producer approval?
- Does said approval need to be public?
- What about impersonating figures from history?
- Is the situation different if the impersonation is related to a commercial project vs a non-profit or personal project?
- Is it any different if the figure is from long ago vs recent history (think Charlemagne vs JFK)?
All things to ponder for the lawyers and practitioners...and all things I will ponder here in the coming weeks.
Thoughts?
So it turns out that AMC was not behind the MadMen Twitters - or at least in any kind of approved methodology. They've sent Twitter a DMCA complaint about the accounts, and several are already pulled: @don_draper & @peggyolson.
I think that this is an epic FAIL on the part of AMC...the presence of the characters had created an interaction with a selection of fans on Twitter, and more importantly had lead to nothing but positive buzz. Said buzz has likely already impacted search and other marketing mediums outside of twitter. Once again a company seems to have made the knee jerk legal team reaction when they could have brought the fan efforts into the fold. That is assuming that it is a fan effort and not from a member of the content team that failed to inform legal or marketing.
Heads up came from venture beat: http://url.ie/n5w
I think that this is an epic FAIL on the part of AMC...the presence of the characters had created an interaction with a selection of fans on Twitter, and more importantly had lead to nothing but positive buzz. Said buzz has likely already impacted search and other marketing mediums outside of twitter. Once again a company seems to have made the knee jerk legal team reaction when they could have brought the fan efforts into the fold. That is assuming that it is a fan effort and not from a member of the content team that failed to inform legal or marketing.
Heads up came from venture beat: http://url.ie/n5w
This is one of the best uses of the native feature set in a social media application I've seen from a campaign yet. John McCain is leveraging the questions feature in LinkedIn to invite participation, ostensibly from an "expert" set of individuals. Given the LinkedIn usage stats, his campaign is onto something. I'm curious to see if they incorporate the comments here into the McCain platform or campaing planning. I also wonder if either of the Democrat candidates will reach out in the same way, or if the demographics of LinkedIn seem too upper income business user for them to spend their money that way... which would be their loss I think.
The Q/A Page: http://tinyurl.com/5hvb6q
McCain's Profile: http://tinyurl.com/5ny3p7
UPDATE: John McCain does also accept LinkedIn connections (at least when politely worded) and wisely keeps his connections private.
UPDATE 2: HIllary Clinton is also on LinkedIn: http://tinyurl.com/4pfr7z
An interesting new side to the the Prosumer trend is the development of professional services that allow individuals to design and purchase and/or sell physical goods via the web. In other words, take physical outsourcing and make it available at the individual consumer level. It's pretty straightforward, you design something, put digital working drawings into their templates, upload to the site, they laser cut everything according to your lists and ship you the goods. You can refine and tweak (obviously the more rounds you do of this, the more you pay in cutting and materials) and then keep for yourself or place into their marketplace.The short view of this is the initial reaction I had "hmmm, maybe I'll finally make that table I sketched out" (although not the one w/ steel legs, since they don't yet work in metals.) Then, after thinking for a minute I started thinking about: what if IKEA or Target contracted with these folks or someone like them? Upload a few templates from their designers, allow users to customize, and make selected custom designs available on their website. If something you customized sold, you'd get either some more store credit or perhaps even some cash. Maybe there's a sales level below which you get credit, above which you become a "registered" designer and can start collecting checks.
What's the risk to them? I don't see much of one except perhaps "taste pollution/dillution" due to poor or "off brand" designs. They can always refuse to "publish" designs that don't meet their standards -- while still allowing the creator to purchase said designs for themselves. Additionally, by giving their consumers the ability to become involved in the production & design process, thereby becoming prosumers, they are allowing for brand engagement and growth. It seems a bit like a win/win to me. I get to not only make my own table, but if it's cool enough, I'll make some cash and be able to tell people that I have a product at IKEA/Target/whereever.
Are there downsides I'm missing?
There's finally starting to be a lot of talk in agencies, media companies and marketing consultancies about leveraging data in optimizing campaign effectiveness. Adweek's recent article about the concept reminded me of a concept I've been thinking about on and off for some time now.
What if we not only started leveraging campaign and interaction data to optimize, update and inform creative, but also started leveraging real time market data as well? By this I'm saying -- take the Wall Street model that Adweek references, and incorporate not just the methodology but the data as well. What if your marketing analytics dashboard not only gave you insight into not just what your potential customers were doing within various media, but what related and competitive firms/products were doing in the market? Furthermore, what if you could cross compare online and offline buzz & media trends in regard to your industry/product/consumer mood with which media units were being engaged with? Seems to me like you have a hell of a lot more insight into where you and your company/product/service fit into the current and trending conversation.
Sounds like it could be one heck of a tool to build and make relevant, and probably far more complex than any agency or marketing consultancy would be willing to invest in at this point. But the one that is willing to will leap far ahead of the others. This kind of tool is much like the kinds of quant & trends tools that hedge funds have used to become the trading powerhouses that they are, and could play the same role in remaking the marketing services landscape.
I guess this brings me back to my title - what is your plan for leveraging data? As a corporate marketer, are you talking to the folks in the financials and information services side of your organization to build better dashboards that look at the bigger picture? As a marketing services firm, are you asking your clients to partner with you on the development of such dashboards? Are you willing to test not just 10s but 1000s of pieces of creative and let them auto-optimize? Are you willing to take the investment and financial risks to make this kind of change happen? And are you willing to let realtime quant systems make your least favorite creative run everywhere and your most favorite creative end in the dustbin?
I personally look forward to the growth of these kinds of systems, and hope to be part of building one and putting it to use for clients. Anyone want to help me build it?
What if we not only started leveraging campaign and interaction data to optimize, update and inform creative, but also started leveraging real time market data as well? By this I'm saying -- take the Wall Street model that Adweek references, and incorporate not just the methodology but the data as well. What if your marketing analytics dashboard not only gave you insight into not just what your potential customers were doing within various media, but what related and competitive firms/products were doing in the market? Furthermore, what if you could cross compare online and offline buzz & media trends in regard to your industry/product/consumer mood with which media units were being engaged with? Seems to me like you have a hell of a lot more insight into where you and your company/product/service fit into the current and trending conversation.
Sounds like it could be one heck of a tool to build and make relevant, and probably far more complex than any agency or marketing consultancy would be willing to invest in at this point. But the one that is willing to will leap far ahead of the others. This kind of tool is much like the kinds of quant & trends tools that hedge funds have used to become the trading powerhouses that they are, and could play the same role in remaking the marketing services landscape.
I guess this brings me back to my title - what is your plan for leveraging data? As a corporate marketer, are you talking to the folks in the financials and information services side of your organization to build better dashboards that look at the bigger picture? As a marketing services firm, are you asking your clients to partner with you on the development of such dashboards? Are you willing to test not just 10s but 1000s of pieces of creative and let them auto-optimize? Are you willing to take the investment and financial risks to make this kind of change happen? And are you willing to let realtime quant systems make your least favorite creative run everywhere and your most favorite creative end in the dustbin?
I personally look forward to the growth of these kinds of systems, and hope to be part of building one and putting it to use for clients. Anyone want to help me build it?
American Express™ has launched an interesting travel promo wherein they sell a set of “dream trips” a day for a week. The thing that makes it interesting is that the price goes down every twenty minutes until the trips are gone. These are all high end trips that fit right in with the AMEX brand experience, and the general experience on the site is right in line with the idea that AMEX can provide members with access to experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise have. I’m still intrigued by the aspect of the decreasing price, and trying to figure out what that does besides drive traffic and interest. Would I have been as interested in the site without it? I highly doubt it. Does it play into the AMEX brand properly? I’m starting to think that it does, given that it rewards “risk within reason”. By this I mean that it since customers that are willing to risk waiting and having all trips purchased increase their savings, the entrepreneurial spirit is rewarded… to a point. AMEX doesn’t want to encourage or associate with wanton risk, but measured risk. At least, that’s the way I see it. Or it could just be a marketing gimmick.
Check it out yourself: http://goingonce.amexnetwork.com/
