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Twitter and the Rebirth of Appointment TV.

July 13, 2011 Leave a comment

SPOILER ALERT!! No, I’m not about to reveal the ending of Lost or who may or may not have killed someone on True Blood last week. But if you are online, and using anything social, you are probably familiar with that term. Just the other day I had the ending of an episode of a show I watch ruined because someone on Twitter forgot to put that in front of their tweet. But it’s not really their fault. It’s Twitter’s.

The times they are a-changin’. Again.

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Filed under advertising, apps, brands, Mobile-Social, social media, Technology, Trends, TV, videos Tagged with advertising, apps, brands, Digital video recorder, games, GetGlue, IntoNow, Lost, Mashable, mobile-social, social media, Strategy, Super Bowl, technology, Television, trends, True Blood, TV, Twitter, video

What’s Next?

May 16, 2011 Leave a comment

At every conference, on every blog, in every trade, everyone always wants to talk about “what’s next.” What’s going to be the next disruptive technology, what’s going to be the next big consumer trend, what will people be doing five years from now and how can I prepare for it? How can I be poised to profit from it?

I don’t have a crystal ball or claim to know the future, but since my guess is as good as anyone else’s (maybe a little better), I’m going to take a stab at it.

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Filed under apps, brands, Gadgets, Mobile-Social, social media, Technology, Trends Tagged with apps, arthur c. clarke, augmented reality, blogs, brands, disruptive technology, facebook, Facial recognition system, foursquare, gadgets, games, innovation, IPad, iphone, location-based, mobile-social, psfk, seth godin, sixth sense, social media, Star Trek, technology, TED, terminator, trends, Tricorder, Twitter, video, Yelp

[UPDATED] THREE of my Favorites from the PSFK Conference.

May 5, 2011 1 Comment

I know that I promised you my presentation from the PSFK conference but it hasn’t been shown to my department yet, so you have to wait. But I do want to share the videos of my ~~two~~ THREE favorite sessions of the day.

The first is Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb.com. His story of creativity, ingenuity and determination (to not become homeless) is truly inspiring.

The second is from Aaron Dignan, founding partner at Undercurrent. His presentation, entitled “Why the future of work is play” is a great breakdown of the future of how we learn and improve our skills, as well as a critique of other so-called “games.”

The third was just released the other day, hence the update. Justin Gignac, a recovering art director, entrepreneur, innovator and all around awesome guy talks about his creative process and includes great advice like “Don’t be an asshole.”

I’ll share my takeaways from the conference soon, I promise.

PSFK Conference 2011 (hottubcrimemachine.com)

Filed under Account Planning, advertising, brands, Conferences, Games, Presentations, Trends, videos Tagged with Aaron Dignan, Account Planning, advertising, AirBnB, brands, Game mechanics, games, Joe Gebbia, psfk, social media, Strategy, technology, Undercurrent, video

PSFK Conference 2011

April 6, 2011 2 Comments

This Friday I’ll be at the 2011 PSFK conference in NYC. As you may recall, I love conferences. But this one has especially won me over. Aside from the amazing line-up of speakers and topics, check out the agenda below:

FINAL AGENDA

9am Doors Open, Breakfast Served
9.30 Opening Remarks – With host and PSFK founder Piers Fawkes
9.40 Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter – Funding Creativity with Kickstarter
10.10 What’s Next? A Panel On The Future – Ayesha Khanna, Hybrid Reality Institute; Greg Lindsay, Journalist; Allison Mooney, Google; Katherine Moriwaki; Parsons The New School For Design; Moderated by Scott Lachut, PSFK
10.50 Coffee & More Coffee
11.20 Ben Lerer, Thrillist – Bridging Content + Commerce… In Style
11.50 Joe Gebbia, Airbnb.com – From Moleskine to Marketplace
12.10 Aaron Dignan, Undercurrent – Why The Future Of Work Is Play
12.30 Lunch & Conversation – A Conversation At Lunch Sponsored by Microsoft Tag
1.00 John Puterbaugh, Nellymoser – Adventures In Mobile Tagging
1.15 Future of Mobile Tagging Panel – Patrick Donnelly, QR Arts; Roger Marquis, 2D Barcode Strategy; Carlos Lamadrid, Woman’s Day Magazine; Robin Lanahan, Microsoft Tag. Moderated by Piers Fawkes, PSFK
1.45 Afternoon Talks Begin
1.50 Daniel Cherry III & Theresa Tran, The New York Cosmos – The New York Cosmos: Doing It Our Way
2.10 Eoin Billings & Duncan Jackson, Billings Jackson Design – Industrial Design: ID For The City
2.30 Rachel Sterne, City of New York – City As A Platform
2.50 Coffee & Cookies
3.10. Post-Good? A Panel On Responsible Creativity & Culture – Jill Fehrenbacher, Inhabitat; John Gerzema, Young & Rubicam; Phil Patton, Author; Timo Rissanen, Parsons The New School For Design. Moderated by Scott Lachut, PSFK
3.40 Justin Gignac – Doin’ It and Doin’ It and Doin’ It Well
4.00 John Bielenberg, COMMON – What Happens Next?
4.30 Closing Remarks – By PSFK founder Piers Fawkes
4.45 Screening of ‘Senna’ – Introduced by director Asif Kapadia
6.30 PSFK CONFERENCE NYC Afterparty Sponsored by Land Rover – At the Manhattan Classic Car Club, 250 Hudson Street (just north of Canal)

Do you see what I see? Almost every presentation is only 30 minutes long. Perfect for my ADD and also ensuring that I maximize my information intake. I only wish that Mitch Polatin could be there to experience it with me.

I’ll create a presentation on all the awesomeness of the conference and post it here sometime in the next week.

PSFK’s Future of Mobile Tagging (core77.com)

Filed under Account Planning, advertising, brands, Conferences, Mobile-Social, Presentations, social media, Technology, Trends Tagged with Account Planning, advertising, apps, Asif Kapadia, Ben Lerer, brands, ecommerce, facebook, foursquare, Greg Lindsay, John Puterbaugh, kickstarter, location-based, Microsoft Tag, mobile-social, Parsons The New School For Design, Piers Fawkes, psfk, PSFK conference, Senna, social media, Strategy, technology, Twitter, video

Is The Home Depot Trying To Avoid A Gap-Esque Disaster?

April 1, 2011 Leave a comment

According to AgencySpy The Home Depot has a new logo that drops the “The” from it’s name. Did they release this on April Fool’s Day as a joke? Is it poor timing? Or did they do it today so that if it blows up in their face they can claim it was an April Fool’s joke and if it succeeds claim it was just the right day to launch.

Old and "new" logos for The Home Depot

Only time will tell.

***UPDATE: Apparently it WAS an April Fool’s Joke. And a very well executed one at that. A quick search for “Home Depot logo” will show you just how many people were left scratching their heads, including the entire editorial staff at Hot Tub Crime Machine.

Take a look at the lengths that they went to to make it look real.

Filed under advertising, brands Tagged with advertising, April Fools Day, brands, Home Depot, Pranks, Strategy

Marc Jacobs Proves My Point.

March 26, 2011 Leave a comment

Well, not Marc himself. But the company provides another instance of a brand’s social media presence being misused by an employee. As I wrote yesterday, you need to be really careful who you let manage your brand’s voice. This is not a job for the intern. This is not the job for the admin. Managing social media requires a full-time employee who you can trust. Someone who is invested in the company and the brand. Someone who is skilled at marketing, communications, brand management and strategy.

They are your voice. Would you let your intern represent the brand on Good Morning America? Would you let the intern host a press conference? Then why do you let them manage your Twitter account?

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Filed under advertising, brands, social media Tagged with brands, facebook, marc jacobs, Online Communities, social media, Strategy, Twitter

Who Is Speaking For Your Brand?

March 25, 2011 4 Comments

You can’t scroll through your Google Reader these days without seeing a story of someone getting fired for something they tweeted or wrote on a blog. One of the most high profile cases out there involves Chrysler firing their social media agency after a staffer tweeted “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive.” from the Chrysler account.

And then of course there is the Gilbert Gottfried incident.

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Filed under advertising, brands, social media Tagged with advertising, Aflac, brands, chrysler, facebook, gilbert, gilbert gottfried, gottfried, new media strategies, social media, social media guidelines, Strategy, Twitter

The Title of This Article Explains Why You Will Fail.

March 22, 2011 Leave a comment

I hate seeing things like this “Krispy Kreme’s New CMO to Spend Less, Lean on Social Media.”

If your plan is replace paid media with social media and put the savings in the bank, you are destined to fail. In my earlier post, “Social Media Isn’t Free,” I expressed my belief that any social media campaigns need to be supported with real dollars. To quote every economics professor ever, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

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Filed under advertising, brands, social media, Trends Tagged with advertising, brands, facebook, Krispy Kreme, Marketing and Advertising, social media, Strategy, Twitter

Viral Videos vs. Viral Campaigns

February 20, 2011 2 Comments

If you work in advertising you’ve probably heard a client say “We want a viral video.” Of course they do. Every one loves viral videos. They love getting them, they love sending them. And brands REALLY love when something they create “goes viral.” Who wouldn’t? Millions of impressions, recommendations by friends, likes, tweets all involving your brand.

But you can’t create a viral video. You can only create great content and hope that people like it enough to share it. Or you can create great content, promote the hell out of it and hope that people like it enough to share it.

Starting to see a theme here?

And that is where I got the title for this post. Far too few people realize that there is a difference between a viral video and a viral campaign.

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Filed under Account Planning, advertising, brands, CPG, social media, videos Tagged with advertising, brands, campaigns, Kim Kardashian, social media, video, Viral, Viral marketing, Viral video, YouTube

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