In The Not Too Distant Future...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how YouTube could be the future of television. Well the actions taken by the company in this past week have made it evident that this future may come sooner than we think. I am going to attempt to entertain you now with a hypothetical future scenario and then end this post with some questions worth asking. 

You are a working professional and nothing pleases you more than coming home and spending some time with the family. Tonight happens to be your turn to choose what the family gets to watch! After a nice dinner, you gather the family and sit around the big screen and turn on YouTube (you become slightly nostalgic about the days when there was more than one network on TV). Since it is family night, you scroll over to the 'family' channel and take a look at which show has got the most votes from your friends this week. Turns out it is a show called 'Modernized Family.' You have never seen it but your good friend Steve left a comment that your family will love the show, so you decide to watch it. Twenty minutes into the show it's commercial time and you know this is the kids' favourite time because they get to pick which ads they want to watch! Twenty minutes later the show ends and you make sure to recommend it to more of your friends. 

About an hour after that the kids go to bed and now your spouse decides to turn on YouTube again. John Mayer happens to be playing an intimate acoustic set at Eddie's Attic and they are streaming the show live on YouTube. For old times sake, you decide to watch it with your spouse. 

Now here are two simple questions: 1. Is this future entirely impossible? If not ... 2. When will it cease to be the future and become the present? 

The Clock is Ticking

"The principle of scarcity is based on the future unavailability of something, even if we don't need it: Opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited."

- A quote from Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Caldini. 

If you have been following Seth Godin's new publishing platform called The Domino Project, then you may have been just as excited as I was to hear an 'exciting' announcement this morning. The announcement ended up being pushed until later in the day but Seth wrote a wonderful note explaining why and even giving hints as to what the announcement would be. All anyone knew was that it was going to be a deal, but a very limited-time deal.

Seth even went so far as to say that part of the success for the Groupons of the world, is the fact that their business model has scarcity built in. How many times have we been influenced by the scarcity principle? Discounts, deals, limited-time offers... any of these ring a bell? 

When the Domino Project finally revealed the limited-time deal, it lead me to discover this wonderful offering by Amazon called lightning deals. According to Amazon.com, "A Lightning Deal is a promotion in which a limited number of discounts are offered on a single item for a short period of time." Lightning deals really are an amazing value for money, but what makes them even more amazing is how they truly epitomize the principle of scarcity. I encourage you after reading this post to just visit the lightning deals area of Amazon's site and take a look at the principle in action. You may find yourself automagically moving the mouse closer and closer to the buy now button, simply because the deal is too good to be true. 

So what can a marketer learn from this? (this being the underlying principle of any daily deal business model)... Think rare. Think hard to find. Think the situation with iPad 2's right now. This principle can most easily be applied to an event. Create an event, invite only 50 of the most influential people in your tribe and wow them. This is the idea of a private beta. Think about how much the other x amount of people in your tribe will be hanging on each influencer's every word.

In the past week alone, how much have you been influenced by the scarcity principle? Can we as a society start using this principle as a means of doing good? The clock is ticking. 

What Ignites You?

The fear of public speaking (glassophobia) is one of the most common fears among human beings. Passion can beat fear. A few days ago, I wrote a post about finding your passion. Ignite is about overcoming that fear and sharing your passion. 

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending an Ignite workshop in my local city of Waterloo and it truly was an inspirational evening. A room full of passionate people, regardless of what they are passionate about, can certainly make for an enlightening evening. The true beauty of an Ignite event (although I have never attended one yet but I can imagine based on my experience tonight) ... is the people. Everyone who attends - regardless of whether they are speaking or not - is sure to be inspirational in some way. From what I learned tonight, here is why you should give an Ignite talk: 

1. You have a story to share - You may just need to be given a chance to share it. 

2. People want to hear it - The Ignite audience is not only willing to hear your story, but revel in it. 

3. You may run into another you - By exposing your passion, you open yourself up to a tribe of other people who may be as passionate as you. Ignite is your chance to meet them. 

It's time people heard what you have to say... so ask yourself... what ignites you? Once you've found the answer, then stand up and share it.  

Marketing? There's an app for that.

Today, Apple launched an iPhone app called iAd Gallery. It lets you browse through a gallery of ads. Take a second and read this again from the beginning. 

This is either a gigantic waste of time and money ... or ... it is pure genius. I like to consider myself an optimist so for the rest of this short post I will explain why I think it's the latter. Here are my reasons: 

1. Permission - This is an app... meaning... you have to choose to download it. Unless you are the type of person to go on a downloading spree and click anything in the store, you will be fully aware that all this app contains... is marketing! Downloading this means you are specifically choosing to devote your time to engage with marketing! To marketers, this is what dreams are made of.

2. Lovemarks - A term coined by Saatchi & Saatchi CEO, Kevin Roberts. Why is it relevant here? Although they are not lovemarks in the traditional sense, if you take a look at the app itself (for all non-iPhone users, the Business Insider had a nice walk-through gallery), you will notice there are literally 'lovemarks' at the top right-hand corner of each ad. If you click this lovemark, the ad gets stored in an area called 'loved.' I know you're probably thinking this is some kind of late April Fool's joke but it's really not. What if marketers could get stats on how many people "loved" their ad in relation to how many people downloaded the app? 

3. Future - An ad search engine? This point may seem a little flighty but I guess one can always dream. What if, this app became a sort of search engine for ads. Basically, what would happen is you would type in some of your interests and then the iAd Gallery would serve up some ads that are relevant to you. Based on your interests and your 'loved' ads, the iAd Gallery would be able to provide you with some seriously targeted ads. For marketers - the iAd Gallery would be able to provide specific information about the consumers who are choosing certain ads, giving marketers deeper insight into the psyche of their tribe. 

I really cannot wait to see what the future holds for this app. I'm hoping that it will transform the way companies think about mobile marketing on the iOS platform and perhaps give rise to a new model of marketing. 

Sheep Marketing

Is the new guerrilla marketing. 

In order to promote this, Zynga did this. What a truly brilliant way to cause a bit of a commotion, disrupt the pattern of everyday life and ultimately garner some serious attention for the brand. This is marketing at its very best. 

If you're thinking about running some kind of sheep marketing campaign for your brand, here is what Zynga's demonstration can teach you:

1. Go for the eyeballs - Zynga picked New York and London for a reason. What is the nearest big city to your brand? If you are in a smaller city then where can you go to garner the most attention? Find that place and be there. More eyeballs allow for more puzzled looks, which allows for more questions, which allows for a chance to win a new customer. 

2. Direct traffic - Regardless of where people see your campaign (whether they are witnesses on the street, or viewers online) any traffic you get should be directed to a specific place. In this case, FarmVille's Facebook page. This means, having one location where everyone can go and enjoy the experience. One unique call to action. This will help track the success of your campaign too. 

3. Hire some sheep - Translation... be outrageous. In the words of Seth Godin, be that Purple Cow. You have to be remarkable or else people are not going to take notice and your campaign would be for nothing. How can you disrupt the flow of everyday life? What can you do to make people start asking questions? Try hiring some sheep. 

Not only does Zynga's campaign contain some valuable lessons for marketers but it is also a sign that the digital world is beginning to permeate the physical. FarmVille can only be played online, yet Zynga chose a very (probably one of the most) traditional mediums of advertising to promote its new extension. Just another sign that traditional marketing will not die, it will just become further rooted in digital. 

Plus One (Podcast)


Listen to the episode on iTunes

Listen to the episode online

Episode Summary:

My regular guest Dave Silva and I dive into a deeper discussion about Google's new "+1" product. We talk about the implications for consumers, marketers and even get into theorizing about the future of this product. Hope you enjoy the conversation! (Runtime: 38:39)

Sources for the discussion:

Fools in The Cloud (Podcast)

Find Your Passion

Today marked the end of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. A tournament that lasted for just a little over one and a half months. It came down to two magnificent cricketing nations in the final... India and Sri Lanka (my home country). 

To my dismay, but to the delight of over a billion people... India was victorious. It was truly one of the most thrilling cricket matches I have seen in a very long time. Both sides played phenomenally well, but to quote the Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara, "The better team won." 

India and Sri Lanka are two nations (among a few) that live and breathe cricket. Cricket is to those nations as hockey is to Canada, as rugby is to New Zealand, as the New York Jets are to Gary Vaynerchuk... you get the point. When you find something you are extremely passionate about, it consumes you and becomes embedded in the very core of your existence. It can propel you to do things that you would have never considered otherwise and sometimes may even defy any kind of logic. Have you ever seen someone who is truly brilliant at what they do and yet, ask for no (real) money for it? or better yet, they give their art away for free? They do for the sake of doing and not for the sake of receiving? 

These are passionate people. Find your passion.