Open Source Advertising

Working with advertising innovator Federated Media, Cisco succeeded in getting a bunch of opinion leaders to contribute to a wiki to define the "human network." This approach is an excellent way to build influencer recommendation for your company. What's more, I really like the way this idea can "scale." You can do it with a few friends or a large audience.

ChasNote: Cisco’s Brilliant Concept; With the Help of Friends, Brilliantly Executed. 2006-Oct-5, by Chas Edwards, VP Sales & Market Development at Federated Media

...Truly open source advertising! ... Within the first 48 hours, 600 people had voted. And since the campaign empowered website authors to participate, build co-branded ads for their own sites and even contribute strategic input on the campaign overall, a few of the authors even plugged the campaign in editorial posts....

Socializing with Newspapers

Newspapers would seem to be an ideal place for social media to develop, as John Ellis says below. We do already have some papers that focus on personal ads. My own hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, is leading-edge in its support of bloggers. However, the ability to developing "followings" for local organizations and companies at newspaper sites would seem to be an unhatched opportunity.

WSJ: Squeeze Play,2006-Oct-31 by John Ellis

...The transition from newsprint to pixels has been a painful one for newspaper companies everywhere. Print advertising revenues have hemorrhaged. But Web 2.0 is just around the corner and social networks have emerged as the engine of growth on the Internet. Combine shared interests (social networks) with publishers (content aimed at those interests) with targeted advertising (specific to those interests) and you have the makings of a money machine....

New Retail Communications Channel

We're only beginning to understand the power of aggregating product reviews. This trend started on independent web sites, and I did not expect retailers to embrace it the way Amazon has, but they certainly do now. Apparently, it is just a natural outgrowth of standing next to someone in a check-out line, seeing her holding a product, and asking her if it works.

DM News: Petco, P&G and Shaw use digital to open doors. 2006-Oct-30, by Chantal Tode

...[Brett Hurt of Bazaarvoice] said enabling customers to create product ratings and reviews online not only engages the consumer, but can become a digital asset that can be leveraged with analytics and by merchandising. Ratings and reviews "give people a more tactile experience online and allow people to touch and feel product online through other people"...

Chevy Aveo: A Car to Live In

To market the Aveo to advertising-avoiding college students, Chevy launched a contest calculated to create evangelists. Teams from several campuses were invited to compete for a new car by taking one to live in for a few days and seeing which team could get the biggest online following of friends. A blog site was supplied but they were also encouraged to use MySpace and any other social media to promote their team activities. The contest is over now, but judging for the entries, a good time was had by all.

Detroit News: Catering to Gen Y drives Chevy ad blitz. 2006-Oct-30, by Josee Valcourt

...Khatiwoda, 20, is pairing up with a college friend, Keriann Zolman, a 21-year-old pre-law student, in hopes of winning their own wheels....The MSU students, both from Madison Heights, plan to park their Aveo near a downtown bar in East Lansing and pump up the car's sound system as loudly as municipal ordinances allow for an outdoor Halloween party...."We're just going to make people come to us," Khatiwoda said.

Is that a Live Salesperson in my IBM Ad?

This IBM banner ad has to be seen to be really understood, but it creates an effect like a "window" into the contact center where a live rep is hanging out and ready to talk to someone (in Danish). I don't think it's actually real-time video, but the voice and text messaging absolutely are. I just hope they always remember to match the gender of the real salesperson with the gender of the person in the video clip.

ClickZ: IBM Campaign Uses In-Banner Video Chat. Zachary Rodgers, 2006-Oct 23

The newfangled ads are the invention of Avivocom, which uses a combination of video, VoIP and text chat to let its enterprise clients converse with online prospects....IBM believes the ad unit helps it be accessible to the SMB community, which tends to think of the company as monolithic and aloof. "We put a face to the marketplace," said Ed Abrams, VP of integrated marketing communications for IBM Americas.

Bring a Stake to the Game

Desire to create a "cool" product leads many marketers to "urban youth," where they hope to capture the loyalty of this trend-setting audience. Looking over recent successes and failures in marketing to urban youth in the U.K., James Curtis of BrandRepublic notes that marketers need to accept the diversity and frequent poverty of this market's members and meet them on their own terms. You can't join a poker game without a stake, and you can't play in this sophisticated market unless you contribute.

Sprite U.K. has experienced some success in this market by sponsoring Urban Games and inviting grafitti artists to contribute artwork for cans, which are then sold at the regular price, but as limited editions.

...According to Glen O'Connell, sports and lifestyle marketing manager for video-game company Electronic Arts (EA), this kind of two-way interaction is essential. 'We very much see this audience as one that wishes to interact with the product and brand, and experience it the way they see fit,' he says. 'But they will only do this if the mindset is right. The approach should not be "I know what you like best", but rather "Tell me what you like and I'll tell you how my product can excite you".'...

from BrandRepublic: Youth marketing: What's under the hood? 2006-Oct-18 by James Curtis

Cingular Joins the Network at YouTube

Cingular understand how to participate in the new social networks. Too many companies just want to post a profile and try to attract "friends." Cingular is bringing more benefit to the rest of the network by sponsoring a search for an emerging, unsigned band who will get an appearance on "Good Morning America" along with other forms of support. Over 2,000 video clips were submitted.

...“The Underground Contest” is the first big sponsorship deal YouTube has struck with a major advertiser, but it won’t be the last. ...Increasingly, brands are warming up to the year-and-half old company. And part of the lovefest is due to the way the company integrates advertising into its consumer-generated content, said Beth Taylor, vice president of media for Boston-based ad agency Digitas, which helped broker the deal...

from BostonHerald.com: YouTube contest may discover the new U2. 2006-Oct-5, by Jesse Noyes