2009. febr. 27.

An Extremely Funny Viral - eBay

eBay Spoof Song: The Long Tail Viral Power?!
by Igor Beuker @ ViralBlog

This hilarious spoof song about eBay by Weird Al Yankovic was posted on YouTube at June 28 2006. Here the clip was viewed 20.693.213 times, it got 75.647 awesome ratings and 35.495 comments. Long live the viral power in the long tail… The “I want it? that way” hit of the Backstreet Boys is parodied by Weird Al Yankovic in an excellent way.



What are tangible learnings for marketers? That viral videos and viral commercials can keep building brand equity for 1 to 2 years. Or even for 3 to 4 years. Or more.

So if you think virals and online entertainment are suited for campaigns only: think again! The power of the long tail offers brands many more opportunities. If you measure the viral commercials and gain insights with i.e. ViralTracker, you will even be able to create new and compelling online content strategies for the coming years.

This spoof eBay song is doing its 7th wave right now. Then the power peek of views will decrease for a few months and then it will grow organically to wave 8 and 9 in 2009. Who ever said audio virals were no branding tools?

Some stats about this song and “clip”. Talking about free publicity and never ending brand buzz.

# 5 - Most Discussed (All Time) - Australia
# 3 - Most Discussed (All Time) - Music - Australia
# 1 - Most Viewed (All Time) - Australia
# 1 - Most Viewed (All Time) - Music - Australia
# 1 - Top Favorites (All Time) - Australia
#70 - Top Favorites (All Time)
# 1 - Top Favorites (All Time) - Music - Australia
#53 - Top Favorites (All Time) - Music
#22 - Top Rated (All Time) - Australia
#14 - Top Rated (All Time) - Music - Australia
#22 - Most Linked (All Time) - Australia
#6 - Most Linked (All Time) - Music - Australia

2009. febr. 22.

A book you need: Life After the 30-Second Spot


Book synopsis

In March of 2005, the Pepsi-Cola Company announced that they would be reintroducing Pepsi One diet cola with one major twist‹no 30-second spots. Instead the campaign would include events (see Chapter 14), online films (see Chapters 11 and 15) and other alternatives to traditional advertising such as trading cards.

Traditional advertising‹led by its poster child, the 30-second television spot‹is dead, dying, or in dire need of a shot in the arm. Take your pick, depending on which point of the spectrum you find yourself. And if none of the choices apply, you may very well be in a state of denial. If so, then you'd better read on.

It's true. The times are changing, and the tried-and-true media strategies that advertisers have used for decades no longer work quite so well. Old-school ad campaigns focused mainly on print, radio, and, in particular, television aren't nearly as effective as they once were. You can blame it on too many TV channels, the Internet, TiVo, empowered and savvy consumers, or anything else that sounds good. But if you're an advertiser, you'd better find alternatives to traditional media‹or find an alternative profession.

This is the blueprint for anyone searching for fresh, revolutionary ways to get their message out beyond traditional media. Life After the 30-Second Spot reveals how today's brightest marketers are using new tactics to engage consumers and new avenues to take the place of TV, radio, and print. New Marketing guru Joseph Jaffe looks at what works and what doesn't, and covers hot topics like on-demand viewing, viral marketing, gaming, branded entertainment, and experiential marketing. Proactive and prescriptive, he offers real-world solutions for advertisers struggling to master the new rules of the ad game.

Jaffe begins by examining what's wrong with media today and reveals why the 30-second spot is presumed dead. But media isn't the only thing that has changed; consumers have too. Smarter and more suspicious than ever, they tune out advertising and change the channel at the first note of a jingle. Jaffe looks at what some marketers are doing to connect with these new consumers, and reveals what the new marketing reality means for branding, advertising, and the advertising agency itself. Finally, he explores in depth ten new nontraditional approaches that are changing the face of advertising, and provides commentary on each tactic from some of today's brightest marketers and advertisers.

The 30-second spot is on its last leg, but advertising isn't. Life After the 30-Second Spot challenges marketers and advertisers to reinvent themselves for marketing's new reality, and provides unique, practical, and actionable solutions that really work. There is a firm line between surviving and thriving‹on which side will you find yourself?

2009. febr. 21.

Viral Marketing Guide

by Webchutney

Viral Marketing answers one of the biggest marketing challenges faced by organizations today, drawing attention to an advertising saturated mind.

This document attempts to highlight the benefits of a viral marketing plan in online brand building.



Facebook Adds 40+ Million Users in 90 days

Written by Paul van Veenendaal @ ViralBlog

In October 2008 I wrote that Facebook surpassed the 110 million active users mark, now three months later the popular social network site has reached a major milestone: 150 million users!!



CEO Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook

You read it correctly: More than 150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. And in several countries Facebook’s user-growth doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in just 90 days!


Some keyfindings:

  • Facebook’s growth rate accelerated by at least 25% in least 60 countries
  • Facebook now reaches over 10% of the national population in 26 countries
  • Italy, Indonesia, Tunisia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania grew by more than 100%
  • Canada, Chile, Colombia, Norway, South Africa, Egypt and Lebanon, Panama and China saw no double-digit user growth
  • The US gained 10 million new users. The US accounts for 30% of Facebook’s total active users
  • New additions: Macedonia and Oman
As stated before Facebook still struggles in some countries and continents to gain ground. Facebook is no match compared to local competitors like

  • Vkontakte in Russia and Ukraine (26 million users)
  • Raymond Spanjar’s Hyves.nl (8.0 million)
  • Hungary’s iWiW, (1.7 million)
  • Germany’s StudiVZ (12 million)
  • Google’s Orkut in Brazil, India and Pakistan (67 million)
  • Poland’s Nasza Klasa (11 million)
  • Japan’s Mixi.jp (20 million)
  • Hi5.com in Portugal. Hi5 was the most visited website during 2008 with around 6.5 billion pages visited
  • Bebo in New Zealand (1 million) and Ireland (1.3 million)
  • And then there are also still the global competitors Netlog, MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Bebo with a strong user base in Europe, South America and Asia.

However in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Turkey Facebook has made solid gains, nearing Skyrock in France and Netlog in Belgium, doubling its users in Spain in 3 months time and outpacing Splinder and Netlog in Italy, Netlog in Turkey and Lunarstorm in Sweden.


facebook_140million

Growth since 2006 of Facebook Active Users until 140 million users
(Source: Inside Facebook)

Inside Facebook expects Facebook could cross 200 million monthly active users as early as April, or in about 90 days.

Some more quick Facebook statistics:

  • Average user has 100 friends on the site
  • More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
  • More than 13 million users update their statuses at least once each day
  • More than 3 million users become fans of Pages each day
  • More than 800 million photos uploaded to the site each month
  • More than 5 million videos uploaded each month
  • More than 20 million pieces of content (web links, news stories etc.) shared each month
  • More than 2 million events created each month
  • More than 20 million active user groups exist on the site


Tourism Viral Case Study - Best Job In The World

by Matthijs Roumen

The campaign has already been featured on Viral Friday, but it’s such an incredible case that I’d love to give it some more attention. In this campaign, the Tourism Office of Queensland is looking for a person to suit the most incredible job of the world and comes with an incredible effective social media campaign to achieve their goal.

Looking for an employee through social media isn’t a new thing, but in this campaign it’s not all about finding the right person.


In this campaign they’re looking for an employee who would be able to explore, discover and maintain some aspects of the island. During a 6 months stay, the fresh employee has to report his findings on a blog.
This campaign has several aspects I really like. First of all, they created content people really would love to watch. In the video below, they lay out the most perfect job in the world who only a few people would refuse. This content holds and catches the viewers attention for a minute. The information in the video contains different postive aspects of the product: a visit to Hamilton Island.


As you can imagine, this campaign isn’t just about forfilling this position. It’s all about putting the Hamilton Island in the spotlights and really make people want to go there. It makes you think about being there, doing the job, seeing the most beautiful things the world has to offer and even getting paid for doing your job. The fact that the video is highly entertaining and the underlaying thought of actually apply for the job makes it go viral. People simply love to spread things that are remarkable.

But it’s not just the videoclip that is remarkable. There is more to discover then just the video. The secundairy working conditions are amazing and the video’s of the applicants are fun to watch.

Next to this campaign they’re looking for a more longterm relationship with tourists interested in visiting Hamilton Island in the future. They answer questions via their Twitter page and provide more general information and also answer questions on their Facebook page. With these free communication tools they can keep maintaining a relationship with those who are interested.

And the succes? Over 10.000 people applied for the job, including a video interview. This is a great big number, because effort people have to take to even apply for the job. The website itself has been viewed 2.3 million times in two weeks time from which 200.000 prospective applicants visited the website within the first 24 hours, which indicates a big succes as well. If you Google for “best job in the world“, every link on the first page links to the campaign. Over 1300+ blogposts link to islandreefjob.com and various international newssites such as USA Today, Telegraph, The Age and Het Laatste Nieuws picked up the story. People from all over the world applied for the job; would-be Caretakers from 162 different countries applied.

Overall, I rate this campaign as a big success. They not only managed to create great awareness among a large group of interested, but they also created a communication channel to keep people up to date and informed and to give a chance to ask questions. Great strategy for an awesome product!

(Sources: Ananova, TodaysTHV, Australia.to)

Viral Case Study - Interactive Hot Tub Girl

Choose Your Own Adventure when a Gorgeous Bikini Model enters your Hot Tub. You the audience get to choose our hero's actions! Be sure to choose wisely or else its Game Over! Make sure your YouTub...

SecretSauceTV, consisting of Andy Signore, Daniel Hartley, Arthur Gradstein, Ian Weinreich and John Carreon, made the above interactive YouTube annotations video in which you get to choose a guy’s fate when a blazing hot bikini model joins the hot tub with him. Give it a try and peel the girl a potato, call a friend to say hi, make her a balloon animal, rub her face with a mop, slap her with a fish, drop a toaster in the hot tub and so on and on. The video got over 500,000 views since it was uploaded on January 26th.


Case Study: The Barack Obama Strategy

The is the extended case study of the Barack Obama campaign. 

This presentation was done by Igor Beuker, to 150 marketers at the SRM Guru meeting 2009 in Amsterdam. 

All research was done by Paul van Veenendaal, who used over 250 different sources to create this huge slide deck. 


Postmarketing - new principles for the postmarketing age

We are entering an age where abundance, excess, and accumulation are giving way to thrift, conservation and transparency. Postmarketing seeks to help marketers navigate this fundamental change with a new way to think about marketing strategy.

2009. febr. 11.

PR 2.0 - The Art and Science of Blogger Relations

by Brian Solis


The discussion around blogger relations is more relevant now than ever. And quite honestly, with every debate, exploration, and analysis, these conversations only fuel the advancement and improvement of Public Relations overall. 

It makes us think.

Lest we forget, there is a significant percentage of bloggers, reporters, and analysts who think we're useless - we're merely spin artists who focus on pitching, blasting, and cranking out poorly written press releases. We contact people without caring or knowing their interests or passions without knowing what we're talking about or why it should matter to them. That's the perception.

Don't be that PR person.

No, seriously. Chances are, at one point in your career, you contributed to the stereotype. So, let's do something about it now.

Believe it or not, I still arm wrestle with influencers defending PR. But in may cases, they're right. And, a lot of it has to do with pushing down important outreach to people who are either too junior to engage with industry veterans or not concerned with educating themselves as to why they're reaching out in the first place and why it matters to the person they're contacting. But, this is another topic for another day. 


Blogger relations is so much more than the recognition that bloggers ARE influencers in their own right. Now it's the understanding of how PR can work with them in addition to their traditional day-to-day activity.

I compiled a series of articles into one ebook that I hope will contribute to the elevation of PR as a respected profession, not just by the clients and executives, but by the very people we hope to build relationships with to bridge our story to the people who matter.

What the f**k is social media

It's short, simple, understandable, so f**king great.

All about Google

2009. febr. 5.

Most Contagious 2008

Most Contagious 2008 - annual round-up of the most exciting, the most tremendous, the most mind-blowing events and inventions of the year. The landmarks for which 2008 will be remembered. The most ingenious applications. The entertainment heavyweights. The giant leaps in technology. The viral phenomena. The places and faces setting your world alight.

Word of Mouth - A Prescription for a Bad Economy

The 12 reasons why word of mouth is the tonic for this marketplace and this economy

from Sean Moffitt, Agent Wildfire - Canada's Word of Mouth Experts

2009. febr. 1.

10 things to make you think

by Stefan Kolle

'Presentation given at the Food & Beverage Conference in Athens, November 2008. Based on insights research done in Greece, we present 10 topics to (make you) think about, with a focus on customer centric marketing and innovation.'



'Advertising is dead'

by Stefan Kolle

'Presentation given at the Inspire 2009 conference in Bucharest. Originally intended to be titled ´What if there was no TV´, during the preparation I noticed several trends that led me to change the title to Ádvertising is Dead´. Every new technology has a shorter curve from introduction to irritation. It´s time for a new approach, which I call the Attraction'

FMCG brands stretch creative boundaries online

The latest edition of Microsoft Advertising’s Case Study Compendium looks at some of the most creative and effective online advertising developed by FMCG brands, including Coca-Cola, Heineken and Mars.
 
With case studies drawn mainly from across Europe, the Compendium looks beyond click-through rates and page views to campaigns measured with independent advertising effectiveness research to emphasise the potential of the web for building traditional brand metrics and directly driving offline sales.
 
Among the campaigns pushing creative boundaries online are Coca-Cola’s Happiness Factory 2 campaign, which integrated community and social media to excellent effect, Heineken’s successful targeting of 18-34-year-olds through UGC-style video postings, and the online video ads and virtual jukebox used by Mars to connect with young Belgians.
 
The platforms featuring in the Compendium range from Windows Live Messenger Personal Expressions to social networks and spectacular adver-gaming solutions, with detailed studies tracking the impact on offline sales of digital campaigns for McDonald’s, Burger King and Kellogg’s.

Download PDF here



(C) Microsoft 2008