“Creativity is a commodity” This was my main takeaway from ad:tech (so, if you want, you can stop reading the post now)
Images are all powerful because they cross all language barriers.
Let consumers “experience” your brand and feel more connected to it. Lenovo created “Voices of the Olympic Games” and invited athletes to blog about their sports and share photos and their Olympic experiences. It was so successful the IOC tried (unsuccessfully) to stop it.
Don’t be boring“Do something people will notice”
Great case study — Diamond Shreddies. Advertisers were able to breathe new life into the 67 year old cereal brand by a multi-media campaign that included YouTube video of “focus” groups to show how the old “square” Shreddies were cooler (and tasted better) when they were turned 45°. Folks agreed. (Note: When someone complained that their box only had 50% diamonds, the company immediately responded they were looking into the “problem”. Their solution was a new “Combo Pack” with both square and diamond Shreddies. Check out the Diamond Shreddies Canne video. (sidenote: the Diamond Shreddies idea came from an intern, Hunter Somerville)
Capture people’s imagination.
If you can think it, you can do it.
Innovation is much more than new products.
Check out Porto Media. (reminds me of the real estate ATM)
Brand as Maverick (Nespresso coffee boutiques and coffee bars)
Subversive can be good for sharing (Bansky)
Radiohead’s “choose your price” record — hmm.. choose your real estate agent fee?
Brand as Schizophrenic –be many different things to different people
Brand as Benefactor– be useful and relevant– do charity
Brand as Innovator: Speedo’s body swimsuit (vs. European beach wear); Nike’s Flywire, the world’s lightest athletic shoe
Cool social-mobile app– Nokia’s viNe
“Frictionless distribution of common sense and bravery” Andy Berendt, Managing Director, Creative Labs, Google (now, if I can only remember what he was referring to)
“Creativity is a fine powder you can spread anywhere” Nick Law R/GA
There is no template for creativity. But it seems to often involve humor, irreverence, subversion and entertainment — something folks want to share.
Make something easier.
“Should we do online video? That ship has sailed.” (I forgot who said this)
Cross platform distribution is still difficult– first you must target where your clients are
“When, where and how they want it” the guy from Hulu
Believe in the power of aggregation and organization of information
From the Bleeding Edge: Cooliris, SocialVibe, BigStage, Loopt
Social media pages rank well in search
Use Yahoo Answers
Where are your clients? If they are not on social sites, you can’t convert them
If you want to use social networking for its marketing potential, you’ll have to establish a presence and maintain it.
Check out Library Thing if you love books.
Tag everything in social media
Link anchor text not “click here”
Crawlers can’t keep up with data so a new platform is coming (a Yahoo! guy)
Standard ROI does not work in social media– it is more a qualitative study where you gain insights based on tonality, character of the topics discussed, traffic from sites, volume of conversations, negative or positive trends, who is talking about you — are they influencers, heavy sharers. Are you in the conversations or just listening?
Book to read: Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing
Local is the new black
45% of all ads are placed locally with newspapers getting 30% & interactive media about 10%
Determine what online is good at and what offline is good at & develop your media mix– first determine who is your target market, when do they want to hear your message and how do they want to get it (what channels).
Local ads are sold based on relationships. (I guess that would include real estate pros).
Yellow Book and YouTube partner for content distribution
“Small business don’t buy, they are sold” Peter Hutto, Local.com (quoting some maxim)
Simple is essential if you want to sell local (I suppose that would apply to selling to real estate agents)
You have to sell results to local advertisers (again, this applies to real estate agents)
Dang, I’m tired. Come back for Part 2 later.
Technorati Tags: ad tech, digital marketing, social media
