Great internet campaigns make you... stop using the internet for a second.

Yesterday, a particular banner ad caught my eye. It was for an online dating site whose catchphrase was “the offline dating site” (the implication being that you might actually meet someone in person). I Googled it and the reviews said the site’s no good... And yes, I might have otherwise considered using it. Stop judging me.

So no dates for me :-(. But I started thinking about web campaigns that aim to actually get people off the computer (the nicotine gum of websites, if you will). Isn't that the idea though? Depending on the goal of your promotion, customers are going to have to take their face out of the screen at some point.

To that point, I’ve been trying for a while to figure out an excuse to write about one of my favorite concepts in social media campaigns: the alternate reality game. The most famous example is probably I Love Bees, an alternate reality game played in 2004 which was intended to hype the Halo 2 video game.

The phenomenon began when with some viral distribution of the url http://www.ilovebees.com/ (still active!). Purportedly someone’s personal webpage about beekeeping, the site bears all the signatures of amateur web design, right down to the annoying animated .gif of a cartoon bee. But upon visiting the site, it appears to be afflicted by a severely freaky-deeky virus or hack.

This is the impetus for a radio drama story, told in audio files posted to the site. The plot involves an alien artificial intelligence which is trapped inside the site. The site also gave players a set of global coordinates with no explanation of what they meant. Players discovered that the coordinates referred to the locations of pay phones, and the dates and times when the phones would ring. Players who answered the calls at the prescribed times got the opportunity to speak with story characters, and have their conversations recorded as part of the radio drama. Eventually, the game included Halo plot points and the "winners" were invited to a pre-release party for the game.

How freakin' cool. Everything old is new again, and whether or not you realize it, the coolest thing this century might actually be... pay phones? Well, no. But ironically, the most innovative social media tools of tomorrow's internet might be those which can actually get your face out of a screen in order to have a real life adventure in the "outside" world.

This is an important point to remember regarding the continued survival of movie theaters. With the success of NetFlix and the advancement of home entertainment, no one needs a theater just to see movies. But your house just isn't an adventure. Something needs to get you out.

This is part of the simple appeal behind New Think's "flash screening"promotion for Insidious. Any movie is a movie. But a one-time-only chance to go to a pre-release screening at midnight... Now, that's the adventure.

Today, we have access to everything we want, at the touch of a button, right here in the comfort of our homes. And you know what? It kinda sucks. Find a way to drag people out of their homes, and they just might thank you for it.

Pinterest teaches you how to pick up the chicks

Apparently, Pinterest shares a couple of parallels with the hottest nightclub imaginable.  Specifically, (1) you have to wait to get in if you don't already know someone inside, and (2) once you're in, 80% of the people there are women.

When I attempted to sign up for an account, I received this email:

Hi!
Thanks for requesting an invite. We'll be sure to send one soon.
In the meantime, feel free to explore a few pins.
We're excited to get you pinning soon!
—Ben and the Pinterest Team

What the hell are they doing in the meantime???  Every other mass social site creates your account instantly upon a single click.  Are they running a background check, based solely on my e-mail address?

An e-mail confirmation makes sense to confirm that the e-mail I've given is real.  But why the delay?

From The Social Network:

Tyler Winklevoss: The difference between what we're talking about and MySpace or Friendster or any of those other social networking sites…

Mark Zuckerberg: Is exclusivity.

Also consider:

"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member."
---Groucho Marx

Again, from The Social Network:

Eduardo Saverin: People had the ability to invite, or not invite, their friends to join.  See, in a world where social structure was everything, that was THE thing.

Now that Facebook has taken over the world, the "college kids only,” "invite only” structure is out.  Everyone thinks they need a Facebook profile anyway (and you do, don't you?), so there's no need for a manufactured "this club is for cool people only” phenomenon.  But I'm pretty sure the strategy still holds.  Despite Pinterest's supposed obstacles that prevent people from joining up, it has become the quickest growing new social networking site of all time, with about 12 million users.  Some exclusivity, huh?

It's the oldest trick in the book.  You can give something away for free, but no one will want it.  Tell people they can't have it, and suddenly they will pay dearly for it.  If you advertise that your club would like more members, no one will join.  Announce that your club is full, and people will be desperate to get on the "waiting list.”

So now I'm like a pretty girl that's given my phone number out to this cool new guy Pinterest, but I'm not going to get an invite right away.  Cool guys wait before calling you.  Tell ‘em, Trent:

As I know from someone who's already on Pinterest, I'll soon get a couple more e-mails:

From first e-mail:

You're in!
I'm excited to invite you to join Pinterest, a social catalog. I can't wait to have you join our little community.

From second e-mail:

Hi ______!,
YOU are the newest member of Pinterest, a community to share collections of things you love. We're excited to have you as a member and can't wait to see what you pin.

A few tips to get the most out of Pinterest:

[cropped]

- Pin carefully! As one of the first members of Pinterest, your pins will help set the tone for the whole community. Use big images, write thoughtful descriptions, and pin things you really love. Also, no nudity :)

Thanks for joining and happy pinning!

- Ben and the Pinterest Team

This is exciting. I'll be one of the very, very first [12 million or so] inside their little [12 million or so] community!

The internet may have changed the venue and technology of social networking, but social dynamics haven't really changed at all since you were a child.  Ultimately, if you want to be the leader of the Cool Kids Club, you have to make people fight to get inside it.  Hats off to Ben Silbermann and Pinterest for keeping their cool, and not inviting the hot chicks too soon.  I think it's working.

Too logical to ever happen: combine social marketing with the movie-making process

We're used to the fact that every movie ad and trailer looks exactly the same. That's why we don't even notice that the entire process of movie marketing is pretty much back-asswards.

Or maybe filmmakers, even of the rich big-budget variety, are too sincere to even realize what they've got on their hands. They are too busy shaping their art to give thought, while the movie is being made, to the fact that the movie eventually has to be sold.

Imagine you're producing a potential blockbuster movie. You've got a few big-name actors attached. These people aren't just the biggest thing in movies; they're also the hottest commodity in advertising. They are worth millions just for a 30-second clip of them chugging a soft drink. They each have a million Twitter followers and a legion of fawning gossip junkies who will hang on their every word. They are on set for hundreds of hours, filming their scenes. Then... they go home.

Months later, a marketing department is looking at film footage, thinking, "How do we make a commercial out of this crap?" Meanwhile, the world's greatest attention-grabbers are long gone.

Just to pick a random celebrity endorsement, the first recent one that comes to my head is Salma Hayek for Burger King. Not a particularly great or horrible ad. But if fast food were marketed like movies, their commercials would be directionless. You'd simply film a celebrity eating a salad, then come back to the footage months later and say, "Huh. What do we do with this?"

With a little forethought, movie advertising might have more options than a montage of film clips accompanied by "Solsbury Hill" (even though that's an EXCELLENT freaking song).

In this video from the 2012 Florida Film festival, New Think's Janet Lyons and Mike Campbell detail some advertising strategies from the movie Insidious. Without big-time stars or a big-time budget, the movie received an enormous return from the use of B-roll, interviews, online storytelling, interaction with fans, and footage that was never intended to be part of the movie. The additional content was created as marketing content. Skip to around 38:28 for the most on-point section.

Your favorite movies are probably not something you enjoyed in isolation. You watched them with friends, discussed them, referred back to them. You may have dressed up as a character for Halloween. Maybe certain movies remind you of a poignant moment in your life.

As someone who likes to play poker, Rounders is one of my favorite movies. I enjoy watching it. But just as importantly, it's a great conversation-starter among poker players. It drives social interaction.

What makes Star Wars such an enduring film franchise? It's more than just a few hours of fossilized film from the '70s and '80s, followed more recently by universally-loathed CGI-fests. The series is kept alive by fans who still, to this day, debate the movies and create fan fiction.

Why simply make a movie and then hope for the social phenomenon to happen after its release? Why not create additional material simultaneously with filming, or at least before release? Give movie fans something to talk about. Give them a chance to interact with filmmakers or stars. Let them tell their own stories; after all, they want to be famous too.

Because the best hit movies are really social experiences, movies are the perfect material for social marketing!

But then, you could just make a montage trailer and hope for the best. Your choice.

Sweet new street sign to revolutionize social media?

At the risk of turning this into a sports blog, I have to point out a new favorite among "dumbest attempts to be social media-savvy."

This is the Cleveland Indians' "Social Suite." (Why not "social media suite?" Alliteration? Subtle guilt about the fact that the box adds almost nothing to the Indians' actual social media presence?)

I mean, check out this picture. Somebody in those seats is seriously gonna tweet something killer real soon. How about that lady with the red jacket giving the dirty look to the guys across from her? She's just warming up her fingers under her armpits. Once they unfreeze, she's gonna pull out her iPad and microblog. And it will be totally be Indians-related. Well, OK, how about the guy in front with the drink? Personally, my bet is on the guy creepily hanging out in the doorway. He's going to light up the internet real soon. Either that, or abduct somebody.

As far as I can tell, these are just regular fans sitting behind a sign. They didn't even take time to design a logo for "Social Suite." It's just regular block print under the usual Indians logo.

As far as I can tell, the main feature of the Social Suite is its wi-fi. But they can't call it the "Free Wi-fi Suite." So 2006. Calling it the "Social Media" hot spot is... well, pretty 2010. But that's still a lot closer to the present.

Two serious questions: (1) Why not provide free wi-fi to the whole damn stadium? Plenty of buildings have wi-fi throughout. I imagine it's financially feasible. (2) If your fans are tweeting from their phones, isn't wi-fi unnecessary?

Social media is a means to an end. It's something you use to communicate. What's being communicated here? If you fill out our online application, we might give you free wi-fi for one game? I think I'll pass.

End of the LA Clipper's "reply all" nightmare?

The superfan for the Los Angeles Clippers is back in "uniform."  And it feels about as natural as a person showing up to work the next day after accidentally clicking "reply all" on a scathing email about a colleague.  It's a little awkward.

Don't know who Clipper Darrell is?  For about two decades, this was the world's only Los Angeles Clipper fan:

But due to a spat with the organization, the "Clipper Darrell" phenomenon seemingly ended two weeks ago.  When Darrell Bailey and the Clippers could not come to terms over his use of the "Clipper" trademark, the organization asked that he stop using the name.

The beloved fan was bound to be a sympathetic media figure.  Therefore, a major sports franchise needs to deal with this very gently, using the utmost tact to make sure this doesn't hurt their organization.  Perhaps they would release a statement expressing regret, hope that the two sides could resolve their differences soon, and appreciation for Darrell Bailey's years of loyal support for the team.

"He is not actually a fan of the Clippers, but a fan of what he can make off of the Clippers."—Official Clippers statement on Darrell Bailey.

Whah, but… oh NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I don't really care about the Clippers.  I don't even care about basketball.  But when something is this unnecessarily dumb, I read it and have to restrain myself from jumping up and running around crying with my arms in the air like a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man.

The Clippers claim that Darrell Bailey was being unreasonable, and they may have a point.  Personally, I don't begrudge a "superfan" for trying to make some profit out of it.  For example, I'm sure the royalties for the "Fireman Ed Chant" app don't all to the Jets.  But even if Clipper Darrell was playing hardball, wasn't it worth trying a little harder to keep him happy?  For a franchise whose owner is one of the all-time great sports villains, it might not be wise to make your disdain for the "little people" quite so obvious.  Naturally, it became an easy joke to point out that the "he" in the official Clippers quote above could refer just as easily to Donald Sterling as to Darrell Bailey.

The Clippers say they offered Bailey $70 per game to be a "cheerleader."  Which is an insult.  Nothing against cheerleaders, but there are plenty of them to be found.  Pay isn't just about talent; it's about scarcity.  In economics, this is called "marginal value."  In sports, it's called "wins above replacement (WAR)."  A cheerleader can be replaced.  Clipper Darrell has built a recognizable public personal, and can't be immediately replaced.  That means he gets paid more.  A sports franchise should understand this sort of math.

When their relationship started to break down, both Darrell Bailey and the Clippers organization made hasty statements.  (I think it's slightly more excusable for Mr. Bailey, who probably doesn't have his own public relations department.)  Perhaps they would like to take it all back now.  Problem is, anger can go viral, too.

First, Clipper Darrell posted this statement on his badly designed, WordPress-powered, to-this-day-only-one-comment-on-the-post-itself personal website.  I doubt it's one of the top ten most-trafficked sites on the net.  But it got picked up by news outlets, and prompted the Clippers to deliver their painfully ham-handed public response.

Clipper players tweeted their support for Bailey, as did other basketball players… and baseball players… and more.  Bailey got his own mini-documentary.  He openly cried on television.  There was a sports media firestorm originating from a single post on a website that no one reads.

Now, it's the morning after.  Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan of the Clippers deleted their tweets, although Chris Paul's tweet still exists.  (Of course, tweets never really disappear, do they?)  Perhaps they rethought the wisdom of standing publicly against the organization that issues your seven-or-eight-figure paycheck.  Cooler heads must have eventually prevailed between Bailey and the Clippers, too.  He's back in costume at the Clipper games.  But after all the anger and tears and finger-pointing, it sure feels a little weird.

In a viral world, everything you write is potentially "reply all."  You can't take it back.  (Seriously, I'm not even talking about the Clippers anymore. Treat EVERYTHING you write as though it was "reply all.") You won't get a second chance at your PR spin.

Once again, the genius is in the Super Bowl ads you didn't see.

So, if there were a Super Bowl for advertising, it would be... the Super Bowl.

Is there anything else for which the Super Bowl is the actual Super Bowl?  I think it's pretty much just American football and television advertising.  So I figured I'd have to have something to say the next day, but early on I was about as nervous as anybody who'd placed a bet on the "over" side of +/- 54.  I guess the ads aren't as interesting now that certain people are no longer in the game of making these spots.  ;)

The Doritos crowd-sourced ads are solid, but they always seem to be about the same thing: an obnoxious bag-hog gets his comeuppance.  This kid could be a younger version of this guy.

A few entertaining longer spots.  I'll let you search other lists for those, rather than linking to a bunch of ads that I don't really want to talk about.  One seemed to have people talking more about how much they loved Clint Eastwood than how much they loved the cars he was hawking.  Technically this is a social marketing blog, so look-but-don't-touch Super Bowl ads don't provide a whole lot of material. 

Coke had a nice little idea about live-streaming the polar bears, and by default they win the war against an aging Pepsi campaign about delivery truck drivers that is way past the end of its natural lifespan. [UPDATE: I forgot the Elton John ad. But somehow I found it more memorable that they hadn't given up on the stupid truck drivers yet.]

Among the couches I was sharing, the Audi vampire commercial was a pretty big hit, and I took notice of this: the cheeky Twitter hashtag "#SoLongVampires" got as big a laugh as the commercial itself.  Add another box to the checklist for your perfect television ad: hashtag.



But like I explained in my first post, I most admire the campaigns that win the contest without even competing.  This year's guerrilla Super Bowl entry from Old Milwaukee can't really match Old Spice's trick of out-buzzing every other ad while spending zero dollars on spots during the actual broadcast. But it is getting a good bang for what I imagine is a very limited budget (including reportedly volunteer services from its star).


This Will Ferrell parody of badly-timed ad transitions aired only in the North Platte, Nebraska market, so few saw it live.  But it is making the viral rounds as Sunday night's best kept Super ad secret.  And though people might normally hate the idea of having to endure television ads, if they find out there's an ad they weren't allowed to see, THEN GODDAMNIT I NEED TO FIND THAT SHIT ON THE INTERNET RIGHT NOW!!!

Well played, sirs.

OWS social media marketing (is it more capitalist than capitalist?)

Whenever they decide it's time to sell out, I think there are some great thinkers behind Occupy Wall Street who will make pretty good one-percenters (that is, if they aren't already…).

O.W.S. seems to have its roots in the sixties counterculture.  In one of the great ironies of American history, the anti-capitalist hippie aesthetic has turned out to be a veritable gold mine for people who are willing to, well… capitalize.  Just thinking of a few:

Easy Rider

Hair

The Wonder Years

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream

the "classic rock" radio format

festival concerts (example: Bonnaroo)

You could probably think of some others yourself.  How many Woodstock movies, retrospectives, box sets, t-shirts… How much profit have the suits made off of nostalgia for this one concert?  What about the side-effect of brands that are only tangentially, but fondly, connected to hippie culture (Marshall amplifiers, Harley Davidson motorcycles)?  Have you ever bought any hippie-inspired clothes in a Wal-Mart?  Is this anti-corporate?

Though hippie supporters like (beware, upcoming link somewhat NSFW) Bill Hicks would be loathe to admit it, counterculture or outcast movements become big and important only when they contain an element of brilliant marketing.  Sorry, Bill.  Much like hippies, the occupiers wish to avoid contributing to mainstream capitalist culture… except the occasional ad buy, of course.

The Occupy movement strikes me as a hippie movement for the internet and social-media savvy.  They spread their message through Twitter hashtags (#OWS, #OccupyWallStreet) and take videos of themselves getting arrested in hopes of going viral on YouTube.  This tumblr is in the running for most ubiquitous of the OWS memes.  It's a great viral campaign, because it's simple enough for people to easily interact with, but also flexible enough for people to be creative.

And if marketers in the business world aren't paying close attention to this stuff, they aren't doing their jobs.  Call me cynical, but if you can sell a movement this way, I don't think it's a big stretch to believe you can sell a product this way.

Hey guys, you can go ahead and keep destroying the capitalist mentality and all.  But meanwhile, in the spirit of your movement, a few capitalists are probably going to be borrowing your stuff for free.

Meet the New (media) Boss/Sopa Nazis

What no blog updates in a while?  I have excuse!  I went black for S.O.P.A. way before anyone else!

OK, maybe not, but I have to come back out of hiding to address the biggest social media story of the year.  Short year so far.  But still.

[Wouldn’t it be ironic if Wikipedia sued me for displaying this copyrighted image without their permission?]

The Stop Online Piracy Act strikes me as one of those little pieces of Congressional legislation that could potentially become law without you ever noticing, until some in-the-know friend casually mentions it to you months later.  I mean, let’s face it, it’s not exactly the sexiest bill in the world.  There are no soldiers shipping off to war, or money going in or out of your paycheck, for the most part.  It’s all background-lawyery stuff.  Who can I count on to distill all this obscure bullshit for me?  Why, the newly un-blocked Wikipedia, of course:

“The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a law (bill) of the United States proposed in 2011 to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.”

SOPA (and its Senate sibling with an even cuter acronym, PIPA) carries draconian consequences for websites that infringe copyright, or are even accused of infringement.  Ten years ago, would there have been any real opposition to this?  Were any politicians warned that there would be public relations hell to pay if they didn’t, say, save the original Napster?  There were extremely powerful interests lined up against Napster.  And almost none to support it.

But the website business ain’t kids’ stuff anymore.  The internet, as many of you know… is serious business.  Very serious:

"Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet."

Mark Zuckerberg.  Net worth: $17.5 billion.

On Wednesday, January 18^th, Google promoted an online petition against SOPA and PIPA.  Wikipedia (the thing you’re actually looking for whenever you type a search term into Google) blocked itself in protest of the bills.  Zuckerberg posted his statement on behalf of Facebook.  Lolcats cried.  And I have never seen a story light up my Facebook or Twitter feed quite like this.  SOPA was the only thing being talked about.

[No, no, no.  Wrong SOPA!]

I have Republican friends who protested Obamacare and Democrat friends who protested the Iraq war, but no amount of protest marches or Tea Parties could stop these things from happening.  The medical care of an entire nation, or soldiers killing and dying, might be important things.  But if you threaten the existence of funny YouTube parodies, only then will the entire internet rebel.

Reaction from legislators was profound.  Around dinner time on Wednesday, I found this listing of the bills’ supporters and opponents.  It listed 80 supporters and 32 opponents.  It now lists 63 supporters and 122 opponents.  By Wednesday night, even PIPA co-sponsor Marco Rubio had turned against the bill.

[No, no, no.  Wrong PIPA! (pippa)]

It feels good, doesn’t it?  The entertainment industry can rant all they want about their special-interest dollars, but it doesn’t matter.  You’re stickin’ it to The Man.  The people have spoken.  No sopa for you, you big corporate bad guys who control all information!

But is that really true anymore?  Do powerful figures in the old media and old Hollywood control our information?  Psshaw!  Of course not!  You get all your information from reading blogs and Wikipedia articles!  And when Wikipedia asked you to jump, you asked how high.  We may be in love with our favorite websites, but now that the hangover from the big SOPA push is over, let’s not kid ourselves about who we wound up in bed with.

Meet the new boss, my friends.