Ms. Adverthinker

Over the past two days, I have been reacting like one of Pavlov’s dogs to a bell every time @oldspice tweets a new video.  The Old Spice “Smell Like an Old Spice Man” commercials are viral hits online.  As a result, fans have shared, commented, and clicked play many times over the last several months.  For the last two days, Old Spice has capitalized on that popularity by creating (so far) almost 200 response videos, in real time, to its fans.  The videos are often less than 30-seconds, but in each one, the Old Spice Guy personally addresses a commenter (from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Reddit) and provides a clever quip, thereby endearing the brand to that commenter (as well as all their friends).  The videos are coming so frequently and are so funny, it is quite easy to find myself clicking through to each one as it is posted.  (And so are many, many others: YouTube’s servers are having trouble keeping up today.)

This idea is brilliant because it exploits the basic premise of social media: two-way communication and sharing.  And it leverages the benefit of digital media: immediate communication and sharing.

As brilliant as the idea is, I am most impressed with the production coordination that must be going on behind the scenes to keep up the posting pace of these videos.  I wonder how many people are monitoring the web for comments, then mining those comments for potential humorous responses?  And, how many copywriters are standing by to write these hundreds of 30-second scripts on the spot?  And, the clients must be on the set to approve on-site.  Then there is the actual video production crew, shooting and transferring the video straight to the web.  And there must be a person/people posting the videos and tweeting them out.  This must be one large and fun team, but I bet they are getting tired.  The production turnaround is impressive: I would love to see a behind the scenes/”making of” video after this stunt is complete.

This has been a successful scheme for the Old Spice brand: everyone is talking about it.  Quite a brilliant idea, indeed.

Here are some of the responses I have enjoyed most:

With the Internet’s ability to reach worldwide for the brightest talent, we are starting to see an increased use of crowdsourcing to create the best products.  Check out a great example of crowdsourcing a choir:

This video is way cool, but did you notice the State Farm sponsorship?  OK Go is a band mostly known for their videos (remember the one with the treadmills?), and I had the opportunity to sit in on a panel session at South by Southwest (SXSW) where Damian Kulash of OK Go talked about the making of this newest video and working with State Farm.

The band’s record label didn’t have enough money to pay for the video, so OK Go reached out to State Farm.  Kulash talked about this being scary for them because the band did not want to be in the business of making advertising.  But, he said that State Farm was surprisingly hands-off and understood that they are not content creators.  When they first formed the relationship, State Farm requested that the video be available only on the State Farm website for the initial launch.  OK Go, a band that understands the power of the internet, refused to do this: there is no sense in trying to control where people go on the internet as they will always find a way around the limitations you put on them.  Ultimately, State Farm agreed and the video was posted everywhere.  To give State Farm their money’s worth, the brand as made part of the story, with no attempt to hide the relationship (remember, the internet is about transparency).  And, the video is so interesting that people watch four or five times.  State Farm managed to relinquish control, introduce and endear themselves to a whole new set of consumers, and come out unscathed.  There are even positive comments on YouTube about the brand and the sponsorship.

This is a good lesson for brands looking to expand their audience base in new and interesting ways.  To tap into consumers beyond the brand’s existing reach, sometimes it is necessary to play by the rules of those consumers.  Attempting to force corporate rules on potential new consumers can have disastrous effects (see Nestle’s Facebook meltdown).

Interesting facts about the development of the video:

• It took 65 takes to get the entire sequence shot.
• They actually made it all the way from beginning to end three times.
• 60 engineers worked on the project.

This post also appeared on Talk Business.

South by Southwest (SXSW) is known for the parties every night. It has been called “Spring Break for Geeks” on more than one occasion. On Sunday morning, the third day of SXSW, it was very quiet. The people that were vertical weren’t saying much. And the empty rooms indicated that there were many who were still sleeping off last night’s activity.

Of the almost 120 sessions offered today, I was able to attend the following four:

• “Exploiting Chaos: How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change”
• “Monkeys with Internet Access: Sharing Human Nature and Digital Data”
• “Not Just for Obama: New Media Gets Local”
• “Improving Social Media with Live Streaming Video”

“Exploiting Chaos: How to Spark Innovation During Times of Change” was a presentation given by Jeremy Gutsche, Chief Trend Hunter at TrendHunter.com. Gutsche was a high-energy presenter, which was a good thing at 9:30 AM on a Sunday morning. He opened by talking about “popular” versus “cool.” Popular is not cool. Cool is unique, cutting edge and viral. We are on the lookout for cool because cool is what inspires a culture of revolution. Gutsche talked a lot about brand messaging: being concise, consistent and relevant to your target by speaking their language.

“Monkeys with Internet Access: Sharing, Human Nature and Digital Data” was a session led by Clay Shirky, a frequent and well-known speaker on emerging and social technologies. Shirky’s presentation focused on humans’ innate resistance to sharing when doing so takes something away from us, whether it is goods, services or time. But when sharing allows us to do so at no cost to ourselves there is no reason not to do it, so we do. This is the sharing of information.

To demonstrate this point, Shirky used music. When we listened to music on CD, we did not give our CDs to our friends, because then we would not have the CD anymore (sharing of goods). If we really wanted our friends to have our music, we would spend significant time and effort to make a mix tape (sharing of services). When Napster made it possible to share music as information, we had no reason not to share as it as easy and we didn’t have to give anything up.

The ability to share of information has become super abundant and abundances change the way the world operates: when things are abundant, they no longer have to managed carefully due to limited supply. Information is now being shared freely, so there is no reason to limit access to it. Wikipedia did not show up as a competitor to Encyclopedia Britannica; rather, it changed what it meant to be an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Britannica still exists as a resource, but one that no one uses as the information is out-of-date and requires registration for access. The Patients Like Me organization and website has the potential to change the American healthcare culture by turning the premise of privacy on its head with the sharing intimate health details in an effort to help find cures. Shirky called these actions positive deviance: deviating from social norms in positive ways. The sharing of information has continued to manifest on the social web and has changed definitions.

“Not Just for Obama: New Media Gets Local” was a conversation led by two young online political strategists with campaign experience. The attendees in the room skewed younger than many of the other groups and many had political campaign experience. While we had much discussion about the specific tools that can be used, the moderators talked about the importance of having a strategy in place before beginning use of the tools. As with any communications plan, strategy will be driven by the audience, or in this case, the voter base. There was a lot of discussion about email targeting, SMS communications, Twitter versus Facebook, and what to do with new tools like FourSquare and Gowalla. There was much discussion about the dangers of the candidates tweeting for themselves (no filter and no barriers) and interns managing the channels (there was a story told about an intern playing Farmville while logged into the candidate’s Facebook account). The session provided more questions than answers, but at least brought the issues to the surface. Do you create issue-oriented feeds or manage all messages through candidate-branded accounts? Do you use different tools for different messages, or do you pull everything through one RSS tool like HootSuite to blast the exact same thing to every channel? Many attendees provided examples and stories of social media use in political campaigns from their hometowns.

“Improving Social Media with Live Streaming Video” was led by Brad Hunstable, president and co-founder of Ustream, a live video-streaming site that gets over 75 million unique visitors each month. Hunstable had some fascinating case studies demonstrating that live events online can provide a significant return on investment. For example, when Nick Jonas tweeted that he was going to give an impromptu concert and livestream it on Facebook, he increased his Facebook fans by 30,000 in one day, an increase of 4.5%. Hunstable suggested using live streaming video as an impetus for driving traffic to other sources and platforms that may be lacking needed traffic.

Hunstable talked about the introduction of the iPhone 3GS with video recording capabilities being a turning point for streaming video. He stated that by 2013, 97% of Americans will own a mobile phone and 47% of them will have Internet on their phones. With that kind of penetration, video can be delivered anywhere, anytime. Online video viewership will only continue to increase.

Day three of five is now complete. I have been impressed with the number of smart people attending this convention who are willing to share their knowledge and help others learn. The convention center is getting easier to navigate. I have found the food and water supplies. I am looking forward to the final two days.

This post also appeared at Talk Business.

It was a long second day of the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, TX. There were almost 150 sessions offered today during the six scheduled time slots. In the five sessions attended, today’s themes were community and trust:

• “The Era of Crowdsourcing: Guiding Principles”
• “How to Create a Viral Video”
• “I Don’t Trust You One Stinking Bit”
• “Opening Remarks with danah boyd”
• “Media Armageddon: What Happens when The New York Times Dies”

“The Era of Crowdsourcing” was a panel-led discussion with Scott Belsky and Jeffrey Kalmikoff. These two gentlemen have experience working at well-known social-based companies like Digg, Threadless and Behance, making it fitting for them to lead this presentation. The most common complaint about crowdsourcing is also the most common misperception: that is simply a means to access free labor. Crowdsourcing is a term that was coined in 2006 with the following definition: “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agency (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people.”

We can understand why a business would want to crowdsource: it gets the benefit of the crowd’s wisdom. But the definition of crowdsourcing begs the question: what is in it for the crowd? The benefit to the crowd is the opportunity to engage with a community on a level playing field, where it doesn’t matter what your resume looks like, and the opportunity to contribute to something larger.

Crowdsourcing is the next iteration of the social web. Ultimately, crowdsourcing is about the community that is created to solve the problem, not the challenge of the problem itself. Companies and brands may help foster the community, but the community can survive even if the brand ceases to exist. The example provided by the panelists was Harley Davidson: if Harley went out of business tomorrow, it would be unreasonable to assume that all the communities around Harley would cease to exist. Businesses will need to keep this in mind as they reach out for the wisdom of the crowd, help foster that community and become part of it.

“How to Create a Viral Video” was a panel discussion that included Director of Film and Video at TED, User Experience Manager at YouTube and an OK Go band member. This was definitely a team of people who know a bit about the magic of online video. I admit I was a bit skeptical having recently read that the odds of a video going “viral” are about the same as winning a lottery jackpot. Nevertheless, the panel had some implementable ideas.

This “Viral Video” hour turned out to be the most entertaining session of the day. Jokingly, they started the session by telling us all that in order for a video to be successful virally it must include boobs and kittens. This garnered a laugh, but is not necessarily untrue; there are thousands of examples to prove this combination, or elements of it, equal success.

Turning to practical advice, the panel discussed the components of a virally successful video: content, production value, a sense of surprise and wonderment, a positive tone, and accurate title and tags. Content must be relevant and interesting. Production value can be high or low, its effect depending on the end audience’s state-of-mind. A sense of surprise and wonderment comes down to the reveal. A positive tone because people prefer to spread the love than cause the shedding of tears. Accurate title and tags will help with search and not mislead the potential audience. Surprisingly, the panel never warned that doing all these things right does not guarantee a video will go viral.

Additionally, when it comes to getting the video viewership numbers up, the panel talked about the importance of actively building a subscriber base to communicate with before you are ready to promote videos. Online video is not about creating entertaining content and hoping people will come. We should never forget that the Internet is about community; if we want users to spread our message, we need to interact with them and encourage their involvement. This directly relates to the last aspect of a virally successful video: it should encourage shoot-offs, parodies and satires. If a brand is scared about what users might do to the original integrity of the video, then it should not put the content online.

“I Don’t Trust You One Stinking Bit” featured Internet and social media celebrities Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, authors of the New York Times bestseller “Trust Agents.” These co-authors and obvious friends were great together as they responded to each other’s remarks like an old married couple. Their loose presentation was entertaining, funny and informative, although they strayed far from the topic at times.

The session was meant to educate on building trust with a cynical and skeptical online audience. Brogan said that trust is now currency in our favor-based economy. As an example, Nikkon gave Brogan a camera to use under the assumption that he would like it and write about its greatness. Being a trusted source of information for his audience, if Brogan likes the camera and he writes about it, Nikkon will sell more cameras. Eventually in situations like this, both parties will have to work even harder, as online audiences are skeptical when they realize this kind of favor-based activity is happening behind the scenes.

The conversation shifted to building a personal brand, as this is the most fascinating thing about both Brogan and Smith. They talked about making yourself more interesting, investing in your network of people by showing reciprocal interest in them and doing something different to stand out.

danah boyd (she prefers her name be written in all lowercase letters) was the keynote speaker for opening remarks. As a social media researcher and ethnographer, boyd works closely with teens to understand their interactions in the online space. The theme of boyd’s presentation was privacy versus publicity in social media. According to boyd, a recent example of a privacy “fail” was the launch of Google Buzz, which integrated a very private channel (email) with a very public channel (news feed of user actions). Gmail users had to opt-out of Buzz rather than opt-in, and suddenly users’ actions were being broadcast without them intending that to happen.

She talked in depth about the difference between publicly available information and publicity: just because information is publicly available does not mean that people want it publicized. People understand that making their information available is necessary for social bonding. They recognize that they make themselves vulnerable by putting information online, but need to reveal that vulnerability to ultimately build trust and relationships. However, people are now thinking through when to make something private versus when to make something public; information is public by default and private through effort.

“What Happens when The New York Times Dies” was a discussion about the quality of journalism from a well-established, time-honored publication versus that of community bloggers. Panelists included a New York Times columnist, a New York blogger, founder of the popular Daily Kos blog, editor of Reason magazine, and founder of Blogads.

The moderator started the session by polling the audience to get an understanding of New York Times advocates versus dissidents. The majority of attendees would be disappointed if the New York Times disappeared and responded that they would be willing to pay for access to its content. The discussion following was whether the blogger population of New York could effectively take over the reporting duties of the New York Times staff if the paper were to disappear. There was clear animosity between the Daily Kos and the New York Times, as the Daily Kos believes that Times staff writers are allowed to be sloppy in their reporting due to the paper’s built-in credibility. Because the Daily Kos does not have that institutional support, they work harder to prove the quality of their work and that makes their work better. The Daily Kos representative went so far as to say that the New York Times is a stenographer for power. While no definitive conclusions were drawn, there was agreement that people will always want news and will be source agnostic while seeking out quality coverage.

Day two of five is complete. If you ever attend SXSW, adopt and live the following motto: “It is a marathon, not a sprint.” To prepare for SXSW, I read several blog posts from those with festival experience offering survival advice. While I processed all that information and took some of the advice, I didn’t take it all. Today was the first full day of sessions, with the opportunity to attend six hour-long sessions (with 30 minutes between each session to relocate and refuel). I only made it through five before I was thirsty, hungry, just generally tired and my computer batteries were dead (actually, my computer batteries were dead after only three sessions and then someone tripped over my power chord, causing an injury to the charger that is going to require duct tape). They were right when they said it was a marathon, not sprint. And when they said stay hydrated. And when they said bring extra batteries for all your electronics. They were all right. Oh, so right. Despite a few bumps today, I survived and will be better prepared for tomorrow, even if only by a little bit.

At SXSW, in the “How to Create a Viral Video” discussion, the panelists created a spoof of the “Surprised Kitty” video that currently has over 21 million views.  I am in the very back of this spoof video, but you can’t see me, so don’t try.

Here is the original video:

Here is our spoof:

On Day 2 of SXSW Interactive in Austin, one of the sessions included “How to Create a Viral Video.” This was a panel discussion that included Director of Film and Video at TED, User Experience Manager at YouTube and OK Go band member. This was definitely a team of people who know a bit about the magic of online video.

Jokingly, they started the session by informing us that in order for a video to be successful virally all that was needed were boobs and kittens. It garnered a laugh, but is not necessarily untrue; there are thousands of examples of these successes.

But boobs and kittens won’t work for everyone. The panel had several useful tips for video success:

• Think about he way the video will be seen. If your end use is on the Internet, keep in mind that it will be viewed small. Use tight shots and close-ups so the viewer can actually see what is going on.
• Think about what you would want to watch. There needs to be an element of wonder and surprise. It is all about the reveal.
• Think about your end audience. Would they want to be impressed with a high production value or do they want to identify with the video and think they could do something like that. The production values of successful videos vary; it all depends on what your viewers want.
• Think about creating a smile. Content that goes viral is typically very positive. The negative videos don’t get shared as often. If you want to be a viral success, don’t be a Debbie Downer.
• Think about building a subscriber database before you have the content ready to share. Interact with this database and build your own community. It is not about creating content and hoping people will come.
• Think about how your community can interact with the video. Make people want to be involved with the video by encouraging and embracing shoot-offs, parodies and satires. All of these assist in the infectiousness of your original video.
• Think about engaging with your commenters. Don’t be the distant, anonymous creator. Foster and encourage the discussion.
• Think about aggregating great content that is already out there. You don’t have to create original content to bring people to your site; curate the great content that is already out there.

This has been online for a while and posted to this site before, but since it always makes me smile I thought it was worth dusting off again today.  Enjoy.

As a supplement to yesterday’s post, here are some excerpt from a New York Times article today reporting that online videos are growing in length as technology improves for editing and viewing online:

“While online video is not going to replace television anytime soon, it is now decidedly mainstream. About 150 million Internet users in the United States watch about 14.5 billion videos a month, according to the measurement firm comScore, or an average of 97 videos per viewer. Although the Web lacks a standard for video measurement, comScore says average video durations have risen slowly but surely in the past year, to an average of 3.4 minutes in March.”

…

“Yet TV networks get much of the credit for the longer-length viewing behavior. In the past two TV seasons, nearly every broadcast show has been streamed free on the Internet, making users accustomed to watching TV online for 20-plus minutes at a time. By some estimates, one in four Internet customers now uses Hulu, an online home for NBC and Fox shows, every month. ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ the popular ABC reality show, draws almost two million viewers on ABC.com, according to Nielsen.

“’People are getting more comfortable, for better or for worse, bringing a computer to bed with them,’ said Dina Kaplan, the co-founder of Blip.tv.”

I am visiting my family this weekend and the DirectTV is not working.  Apparently, my dad has been without TV for a week now.  Initially, I didn’t think it would be a big deal:  with four computers in this house and a live Internet connection, and with an iPhone, I thought I wouldn’t miss the television.

I was wrong.  Yes, we can keep up with the world through our Twitter feeds.  And I can find something specific to watch online if I am looking for it.  But I miss the background noise of television.  Even in a house full of people, there is something about having the TV on that makes me feel like I am more connected to the world.  The house is too quiet right now.

This quiet time does have me thinking about multitasking lifestyles.  I spend a good portion of my day online and connected.  However, in reviewing my behavior, I realize that I am usually doing at least three things at once.  I am not alone.  When surveyed, over 80% of respondents are involved with another medium, activity or device while online and almost 60% of those say watching television is something they do while online.  Although media channels continue to get more segmented and fight for our attention, television is still a huge part of our lives; it still has value.  We have become accustomed to receiving information in several different formats with many of those delivered at the same time.  Does it enhance our knowledge or diminish the importance of the information that is delivered?  I believe it enhances our knowledge to receive information in a variety of formats, even if it is all at the same time.  Each delivery mechanism can resonate in a different way, giving the information a dimension it didn’t have when it is delivered in only one format.  When the television is on in the background, we can do several other things and still absorb that information.

There have been theories flying that television will soon be obsolete due to advancing technologies around DVR and online video.  But more recently others are saying that television viewership is growing: according to Nielsen, “the average American television viewer is watching more than 151 hours of television per month — an ‘all-time’ high — up from more than 145 hours during the same period the previous year.”

Obviously, television is not going away.  While I don’t feel like I am missing any news or cultural enlightenment by not having the television, I feel like I am missing an old friend.  The internet can provide me with everything the television can, true.  But I have to search to find that information.  The television just delivers it to me once I set the channel. The television enhances my online experience and the Internet enhances my television-watching/listening experience.  These media complement each other.

Of course, if I had to make a choice between television and the Internet, I would choose the Internet.

Watching video online is mainstream at this point: more than 145 million U.S. web users watched 13 million videos in February, according to ComScore.  While most of the videos watched on sites like YouTube are amateur, there is new movement from YouTube to get more professionally-made content on the site and increase overall video quality (NY Times):

“YouTube draws about 100 million visitors each month, making it an enormous stage for media companies. But many television outlets have been reluctant to share videos with the site. Along with CBS, notable exceptions include ABC’s late-night program ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ which has harnessed YouTube to great effect, drawing 11 million views for its videos in the last month. ‘Consider this your oasis in a desert of skateboarding dogs and popcorn-eating hamsters,’ a message on Mr. Kimmel’s YouTube channel says.

“With deals like the one with ABC, YouTube is working hard to revise that user-generated reputation. ‘They need the money,’ Mr. Vorhaus said of YouTube, and adding professional video is ‘how they’re going to get it.’”

President Obama has clearly taken advantage of an audience hungry for more quality video.  During his campaign, his team uploaded over 1,800 videos to BarackObama.com; he now he has an entire staff dedicated to new media (NY Times).  As expected, President Obama’s videos are always professionally shot and edited, contributing to his overall polished and “cool” image.  He is setting the example of how to present yourself in a public forum, when the video will live on forever.  People have become too casual in how they present themselves online, whether it be Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.  We have all become public figures in this online world.  No longer is it just celebrities that get ridiculed for ignorant behavior displayed in public: we are now inviting it on ourselves by not thinking before posting. The New York Times theorizes a movement toward more cautious behavior from public figures:

“We tend to assume that the proliferation of digital media must be coarsening American speech and behavior. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The threat posed by video parodists appears to have turned public figures watchful and cautious, like people who affect polite reserve in crowds for fear of being mocked or mugged. In the midst of so much digital chicanery, celebrity comportment may grow steadily more formal.”

As with most trends, this behavior should eventually trickle down to the general public.  I am hopeful that it trickles quickly.

12seconds.tv = video Twitter.  The idea is to record updates in 12-second bites.  This is harder than you might think, but the 140-character limit of Twitter was an acquired taste as well.  You can record the video straight to 12seconds.tv and post it to your feed.  Or, you can use mobile device to record the video and email it an assigned email address to get it posted to your feed.  My favorite way so far though is to record it through TweetDeck.  TweetDeck has combined Twitter feeds and 12seconds.tv feeds, so you can do it all via your desktop.

I am still testing 12seconds.tv and haven’t quite figured out how best to use it, but so far, here is why I like it:

• Visual communication instantly.
• Limited time allowance keeps it from getting mundane.
• It is new and different.

Why not to like it:

• Just another status update tool; we definitely have enough of those.

The technology has been around for about a year now, but hasn’t caught on with the masses yet.  This is not to say that it won’t – look at Twitter’s growth: Twitter launched two years ago, but has just now hit the mainstream.

Test it out and let me know what you think.  I have embedded my 12seconds.tv feed on my blog to the right.

I love this idea: someone created a Flickr group for photos of books at your bedside. This is my contribution.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Hilarious.

From the people that brought us the drumming gorilla, a new spot for Cadbury appears. It is great fun, just as chocolate should be. The drumming gorilla was a great viral success for Cadbury, and it looks as if this one has that potential too.

For those of you that do not remember the drumming gorilla, here it is (if it hasn’t been removed yet for copyright infringement):