Strategic Public Relations

1984 - not an instruction manual

Preparing for an upcoming presentation, I was considering the documentation vs. experience trend and its impact on consumer consumption habits.

As Ricky Van Veen notes, people are more into recording the trip to Disney World than the trip itself. A socially-inclined, smartphone-toting park guest could check in on Foursquare, record their mouse-inspired lunch on Foodspotting and brag about their Phineas and Ferb t-shirt on Barcode Hero.

This is a nice change of pace because normally they're just logging in their Phineas and Ferb TV time on Tunerfish. And it doesn't have to stop there, with apps like Stickybits and Layar the park guest has even more opps to record actions deemed private by most of us.

Even one of the most private actions of all can now be recorded thanks to Sit or Squat (an inductee into the brand utility hall of fame, imho).

Overshare Begets Groupthink?
This is not to say Facebook is Skynet or the classic book 1984 has come true. Orwell's tome was written during a much different time and is not a comment on consumer use of technology.

But it amazes me that:

We've gone from a society that fears the documentation of our actions by an organization to one that willingly records and shares them with social media sites.

I'm obviously comfortable doing so. But even I have limits as to what I share online. Surprised?

I'm not suggesting we rethink this, jump off the grid and start lining our hats with aluminum foil. But as consumers we need to think about our information sharing in the big picture. Consumers get a sense of entitlement with free sites like Facebook and Twitter. But your privacy is a participation sport. And this is bigger than game mechanics. Spend some time with the terms of service around the sites with which you share information.

Thankfully there are people much smarter than me dedicated to following the topic of privacy. They can help. Belly up to this site and spend some quality time.

Consumers Valuing Documentation Over Experience

In college, a friend and I compared vacations we'd taken over the years. She had a well-stamped passport and most of my trips were within driving distance.** When I asked about vacation pictures, she told me she didn't take pictures on vacation.

"I'd rather enjoy the trip than take the pictures."

I see her point, but I also enjoy taking pictures. And in a world swimming in technology, platforms and sites that fuel consumer generated media, the documentation of an experience is becoming more important to the consumer than the experience itself.

At Mashable’s Media Summit, Ricky Van Veen used this picture to make this point: “We have a new generation that places documentation above experience.” Instead of watching the President and the First Lady at one of their Inaugural Balls, they watched them through their mobile phones to make sure they got the picture or the video. Younger consumers in some cases even make decisions on their social calendar based on the photo opp it provides.  More here from David Spinks.

It will be interesting to see how this trend unfolds. But it’s another facet of changing media consumption habits.

It reminds me of an excerpt from the book Data Smog: "As we severely limit content, we learn to savor it more. I experienced this paradox firsthand when I asked my brother Jon to film my wedding. He used an old Super8. -SNIP- The three-minute films he created are cherished glimpses into our wedding and reception, in marked contrast to an uninterrupted three-hour video that dulls our senses and renders useless our memories. A medium that captures almost everything conveys almost nothing.”

 

Applying the above trend to your content and experiential marketing efforts – is your brand serving up important glimpses? Are there moments of discovery? Is it easy to share?

Cross posted to my work blog, Social Study.

Stickybits: Mobile App Turns Consumer Goods Into Media

Whether or not it created the most buzz during Internet Week New York is up for debate. But Stickybits holds major potential for any consumer packaged goods brand.

According to Techcrunch, Seth Goldstein considers the mobile app an evolution of online media.

"In 1996, webpages became media. In 2001, search became media. In 2005, people became media. In 2007, status updates became media. Last year, places became media. And in 2010, objects will become media.”

Stickybits lets your smartphone take a picture of the barcode on any product or object (via Stickybits barcode stickers). The user can then view content from the brand, content from other users or add their own content to the object – from video and text to photos and audio comments. All content bcomes a threaded conversation and users can rate content they experience.

As Pepsi is already working with Stickybits, they offer a great CPG example. Download the app, scan a Pepsi can and you’ll see content from the brand and its consumers.

Options for consumers and brands using Stickybits are limited only by the imagination as you can now check-in with an object much in the way Foursquare lets you check-in to a location. Here are just a few ideas for brands.

• Attach an instruction video to a product, eliminating paper and possibly extra packaging
• Add a wine review to the bottle or a movie review to a DVD
• Host a recipe contest where every recipe attached to the barcode is voted on by customers who ultimately select the winner
• Serve up a video on a product with details about a new product or detailing a cause marketing push
• Push out a coupon for a complementary product offered by the brand

Transform Products into Owned and Earned Media

Over time, as the user base grows, companies like can mine this information and serve up relevant coupons for brands based on the information gleaned from each barcode.

And as the accuracy of geolocation continues to evolve, CPG brands may even be able to optimize shelf space based on what they learn from Stickybits. The concept of turning an entire product line into owned and ultimately earned media is powerful. As a result, we recommend CPG brands spend some time with this emerging app.

Cross-posted to my work blog Social Study

Text vs. E-mail or Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

Call me Mr. Obvious here, but I had an interesting experience at my coffeehouse recently.

Cashing in a frequent buyer’s card for a free, highly-caffeinated beverage, my barista encouraged me to sign up for information on future promotions and events.

She told me to write down my cell phone or, if I was willing, my email.

This struck me as odd. Personally I’d hand over an email address before I’d give over my cell phone number. My barista noted that most customers don’t consider a quick text (a temporary message passing through their phone) to be as intrusive as an e-mail (a permanent, official message clogging up their inbox).

This makes sense. But it also shows the digital immigrant in me.

Media Post reinforces this, noting “52% of Millennials strongly appreciate communication via cell phone or text message and 55% said the same about social networking sites. This compares with the General Population at 38% and 39%, respectively.”

Bottom line is that yesterday’s approaches are working less effectively today and they aren’t going to work at all tomorrow.

they’re already into texting uploaded by Kendrya

Issuu Transforms PDF Files into Online Publications

Get your own - Open publication

The best way to tell you about Issuu is to show you. So I embedded this publication I help create at work for our customers.

According to the site you can “upload any PDF file and have it instantly converted to an online publication.” The site is pretty slick -- easy to use and it serves up the files very elegantly. Issuu also makes it easy to post your publications on Facebook, MySpace and several blogging platforms.

Issuu is to PDFs what SlideShare is to PowerPoint decks -- a blessing for anyone publishing content in these formats online.

Much like SlideShare, your content will be part of a library of other publications. You can also rate the content and share it with others/republish it. It looks like folks are also using Issuu to host their portfolios. This is a great idea as the interface and user experience are perfect for the creative/design set.

via Shane Haggerty
tags | Issuu | SlideShare

Chanel Turns iPhone App Store into a Fashion Show

♫On ze catwalk I do my little turn….♫

Just in time for Fashion Week, Chanel dropped a new application into the iTunes App Store. Chanel’s Haute Couture Show F/W 08/9 puts its latest fashions into the palm of your hand.

This application is smart. It includes a quick video of the fashion show, more than 60 pics of the latest fashions, news feed and a store locater.

As marketers scramble to connect with the iPhone demographic, they should consider this approach. It's a mobile event blog, with time-based value. You could encourage the application owners to include their own content through a page with event tags and links to mobile Twitter and Flickr apps.

If I were headed to a major event like the Super Bowl or the Grammys, I wouldn't think twice to download an application supporting the event…even if it would be essentially useless post-game. The Chanel store locater is getting mixed reviews, but the news “chanel” may make users more likely to keep the app on their device.

OK, I’m more of the t-shirt set than the jet set. So I have to ask, does this app make me look fat?

On ze catwalk, I do my little turn... uploaded by prblog
tags | advertising | marketing | Chanel | Fashion Week | branding | brand

Social Media Brings G8 Summit, Olympics to a Screen Near You

Can a backstage pass create a connection between a brand and a consumer? The British Prime Minister and Lenovo are both trying to find out.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has had a Twitter Twitter account set up for some time now. Brown recently built on this for the G8 Summit to bring voters, er, British citizens inside access via Flickr and a G8 blog.

Lenovo is taking a similar approach for Beijing with its "Voices of the Olympic Games." Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargava is part of a team encouraging 100 athletes from more than 30 sports and 25 countries to use their Lenovo laptops and Flip cameras to detail their experiences.

Their video, Flickr, blogs and Twitter feeds will all roll up into the site and Lenovo is clear in noting it “HAS NOT required the athletes to say anything positive about Lenovo - the aim is to offer its technology to help them share their voices.”

Time Machines
This approach makes perfect sense for both groups and is clearly well-intended. My assumption is that, along with automotive, two of the most active groups online are politics and sports.

Anyone planning programs like this one needs to build in one key component – time. Once the sites go live and promotions are in full swing, true conversations take time. After content is published, the authors in question usually have something better to do other than wait for tweets, emails and comments to roll in for immediate response.

It takes time for plain old back and forth communication to happen. And that's one reason why the value of a social media campaign increases over time as traditional vehicles, like print ads, decrease over time.

Plan accordingly or don't plan on connecting with your consumers.

Light Holders uploaded by Downing Street
tags | public relations | PR | social media | G8 | Olympics | marketing | Lenovo | consumer-generated media | Rohit Bhargava

The First Mash-Up, Circa: 1977

The AP tells us that "some retailers are giving vinyl records a spin" (get it?).

This reminded me of another long-lost recording format. As I wistfully combed the results of a Google Image search for the perfect image of an Eight Track, I found evidence of the first mash-up.

The interactive 8-track looked like the average 8-track, except at the bottom, where the Atari cartridge was connected. These 8-tracks, or "double-enders" as the music/video game fanatics called them, were an instant success and proceeded to change the music industry for at least a couple of weeks.

The double-ender was a hit. Magazines like Rolling Stone and Gamers Monthly hailed the Foghat Live 8-track as the start of the new music and video game revolution. And it was, for the next four years at least, but in the end it was not enough to save the interactive 8-track from the trash heap of nostalgia.

-- Via The Van Gogh-Gogh's

Is it me, or is that guy so beyond smiling that he looks in pain? UPDATE: Yeah, it's a joke. But a guy can dream, can't he?!

You Need Serious Play*

In lieu of a Friday Flickr Fix, I’m serving up video. Last week I won a webcam and this video is the result of my special effects test. When I watched it, the Radiohead mashup came to mind. The two complement each other (and redefine goofy in the process).

This is not my first webcam or my first video. But I’m posting the video to prove a point.

Playing around with new web sites and new gadgets can lead to some serious benefits. My presentations have improved since tuning into Flickr and using video to kick off a slide deck. So this post is to encourage and inspire – while hopefully making you laugh (with me, not at me).

Far too often, I think people want to fully understand new technologies before they start using them. But instead they should just jump in, experiment and engage in serious play. *Serious play is also a design conference and a book.

Heading to NRF, the CES of Retail

Heading to NYC this weekend to attend the National Retail Federation Show at the Javits. In addition to media briefings, we have two presentations and a booth so we’ll be plenty busy.

But I’m pumped to see this year’s ”Store of the Future” exhibit. I’ve covered pop-up retail here before as a great marketing and public relations tactic. The exhibit features technology that supports pop-up retail.

The exhibit will show what the pop-up might look like in the future – “demonstrating technologies such as rear projection film, use of retail scales, pedestrian traffic measurement methods, in-store design, electronic shelf labeling, custom store fixtures, high-definition display screens, user-interface shopping technology, mobile marketing devices, interactive communications systems, innovative anti-theft security solutions and more innovative products.

The M-Wallet, one of Motorola’s latest mobile phones which allows consumers to pay for their purchases with the handheld device, will be displayed. Additionally, IBM will feature a 3D Second Life experience to demonstrate both the consumer and retailer perspective of virtual retailing.

Looks pretty interesting. We’ll see.

If you’re in NYC next week and want to check it out, let me know. I have plenty of free passes.

tags | marketing | retail design | NRF 08