A lesson in hype building

Dispatch is one of my favourite bands.

They made a lot of music in the late 90's and early 2000's but then took a break until 2011. Now they are back with a new album and have decided to announce a summer tour. Except, unlike any other tour announcement I have seen ... Dispatch decided to do things a little differently ...

Based on the picture, I am sure you can tell how this worked. It initially started with 1000 shares to reveal the first location and then it moved up by small increments to reveal each subsequent location.

Users who visited their website dispatchmusic.com were redirected to a landing page: unlock.dispatch.com where they saw the screen above and could start sharing Dispatch's news.

Here's why I love this idea:

  1. It utilizes fans - If you're the band, you have your locations already set so instead of revealing them all at once, why not utilize your existing fan base to spread your news for you!
  2. Valuable content - Fans who share this are inherently benefiting from it because there is a chance that their city could be on the list. If revealed, they can use this valuable information to start planning to see the show.
  3. Landing page design - The page layout is simple, fans of Dispatch just have to use either Twitter or Facebook and just share content from a band that they already love. Let's be honest, they are probably already logged-in to one of those two services already so that makes the sharing even easier.

A great hype building lesson by a great band.

The genius of Myspace

When I came across this landing page for the new Myspace, I could not help but marvel at the genius of it. Allow me to break down my thoughts:

1. Clear heading - Also it's intriguing because if you didn't know that was the name of JT's new single then you may be slightly confused ... yet curious, which is a good thing (It causes you to learn more).

2. Nice image - He's not stock. He's gorgeous.

3. Short but sweet copy - You don't need much, you just need to explain your headline.

4. Cleeeaaarrr calls to action - Also, only two calls to action! So easy! The person visiting this page only has two options!!! Well, they can also leave the page without doing anything, but that's a risk anyone faces. 

5. White space - Gives your eyes time to focus instead of being assaulted with images, copy and calls to action.

Overall = genius.

Check it out for yourself.

We are no longer consumers

We are creators.

Have you ever heard of a show called Hawaii Five-O? Well ... there's a small chance that you may have actually played a part in creating an episode of this show.

In what I believe to be a first of it's kind, the producers of Hawaii Five-O are going to give viewers the opportunity to dictate how they want a certain episode to end. Viewers will tweet one of three options and then CBS will air the chosen option in real-time.

This blows my mind.

How far away are we from consumers completely crafting a show of their own? It would take is a group of willing actors to say, "Hey Twitterverse, we're going to come up with a series of entire episodes for a show where YOU get to dictate what happens!" In a marketer's terms, leave the content delivery to us and we'll leave the content ... to you!! 

I think this calls for a new term. It's no longer crowdsourcing ... it's crowdcreating.

The poetic dance

Startups, tech behemoths and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPGs) giants are well entrenched in a poetic dance.

Here are a couple of examples that add some credibility to my lofty thought:

1. The Mobile Futures program started by Mondelez - Nine mobile-focused startups have been chosen to augment the marketing strategy for brands such at Trident, Chips Ahoy!, Stride, Oero, Halls and Sour Patch Kids.

2. Samsung's next generation smart fridge -This fridge basically takes care of itself ... and you in the process. It comes with an assortment of useful apps to help you manage your groceries and among other things, Samsung has partnered with Unilever to occasionally promote coupons for Unilever products through the fridge's interface.

What does this poetic dance mean for marketers?

A new kind of marketing innovation.

Technology has reached the point now where it can tell what is about to expire in your fridge. In other words, technology knows when you are at your most vulnerable ... from a marketing standpoint. It has even reached the stage where it can potentially deliver you a coupon at the precise moment at which you need it.

I have a feeling that technology may make consumers more passive about consuming marketing messages. This is simply because consumers will just allow technology to do the work for them. The days of looking through a coupon book will be long gone, coupons will appear in relevant places (such as your mobile phone), when you need them and not a moment sooner.

Marketer's have a chance to innovate here.

If consumer behaviour is evolving to the point where a piece of technology becomes almost like an extra appendage, marketers must then add value to consumers' lives through that appendage. Maybe innovation looks like delivering a relevant coupon when a consumer needs it most, or maybe its teaching children how to be entrepreneurs via a 'run your own Oreo cookie stand' app. Who knows. 

As both a consumer and a marketer, I am very excited to see what new revolutions this poetic dance brings.

Fotobars - The new frontier in utility marketing

I am not sure where I first came across the term 'utility marketing,' but the meaning of it is fairly straightforward. A lot of apps follow this model, when brands produce them to simply enhance or augment a customer's experience rather than actually provide a good or service. For example: An app that provides a catalog or a map of a location has great utility to those who seek that type of information.

This past week, I came across a story about Polaroid and their plans to open up a series of retail locations called 'Fotobars.' These bars let people come in and print photos that have been stored on their phones.

From a utility marketing perspective, here's why this strategy is interesting:

  1. People love taking pictures (as evidenced by Instagram's meteoric rise), so Fotobars are simply providing an outlet for people to take their enjoyment to the next level.
  2. Polaroid doesn't make phones, nor does it necessarily own the photo-taking apps. Fotobars are simply providing a platform on which people can use their existing products. In a way, Polaroid is essentially product agnostic, much like the Amazon Kindle app.

The next time you are considering a marketing plan or perhaps you are even thinking about how to revitalize a current product using a new marketing strategy ... consider utility.

This is a suggested post

Earlier today, I saw this in the heart of my Facebook news feed:

Let me break it down quickly from a marketing perspective:

1. Short, brief copy = good.
2. Social proof (lots of likes, shares, comments) = good.
3. Clear CTA (Like page) = good.
4. Captivating creative = good.

Now let me break it down from a user (far more important) perspective:

1. Relevant = nope.

Therefore, all the marketing points I made earlier ... redundant, useless, void, wasted.

If you're a marketer planning on using any form of non-permission based advertising this year ... please make it relevant. Users ... please revolt against irrelevancy in marketing.

Be an artist

I spent today reading The Icarus Deception. 

I have always and will continue to be inspired by Seth. His generosity is contagious.

Here are a few of my favourite insights from the book:

Art is the act of pointing a light at the darkness. Before you turn on the light, you have no idea what you're about to see, and once you know what you're going to see, it's no longer dark. 
Art is the truly human act of creating something new that matter to another person. The only refuge left, the only safe path, is to be the one who makes art.
The connections in our life multiply and increase in value. Our stuff, on the other hand, merely gets cheaper over time.

My hope for your 2013 and my own:

Be an artist. Make connections. Start something worth starting. Be vulnerable.

Every day this next year you and I will have the opportunity and the choice to approach something differently. I hope for both our sakes, that at least on one day ... we seize that opportunity and chose to make a difference.