Are you lurking here?

Recently I have found myself in conversations with various folks working in the communications industry chatting about how they working on campaigns to get people to be more personally involved with their brand and or marketing campaigns... post a note on their blog or website, shaping a radio station playlist, uploading photos as part of a promotion, following a brand on twitter, join a facebook group in the name of a brand etc etc

All good stuff in this rather modern age of consumption and online socialisation, but the big question looms large - how far will people go in the name of social type involvement with a brand? Naturally the first consideration is about how much they like or possibly even love a particular brand... I am a little loathe to spend time with people that either I don't like very much or don't have much in common with. (no big surprise there!)

But what has been really niggling me is how to work out the potential level of involvement. Not all people are the same... some people are loud and opinionated, some are silent types and keep their opinions to themselves, some people like to make their own path in life, some prefer to follow the crowd. So how do these things vary when comparing behaviour in the analogue world to the digital world?

There are a few good theories on the debate...They aren't shiny new by any means but nonetheless, worth sharing. 90-9-1 is a good rule of thumb simply stating that some people participate more than others. researcher Jakob Neilsen calls this participation inequality. The theory goes that:

• 1% of the online community are CREATORS of content, happy to start things from scratch like websites, blogs and networks


• 9 % of the online community are comfortable as being EDITORS and chipping in or adding to ideas, forums and posting comments


• 90% of the online community are more comfortable LURKING, reading or observing than having to make a contribution.

Forrester have also developed what they are calling a 'social technographicss framework that poses a different set of participation statistics around populations based on their data which is based on a way of looking at this area. Check out their 2009 tool to get a breakdown based on a few demo inputs

So in getting back to the question, asuming you havea good idea to start with, you can apply a framework like Forresters and get a rough idea of the number of participants you can expect.

I quite like the recommendation from http://www.90-9-1.com/ around ways to make participation easier which I have stolen below... this is the abreviated version so check out the site for the full lowdown.

1. Make contributing easy for everyone.


2. Encourageediting over creating - blank pages are scary.


3. Reward participants.


4. Go easy on the rewards, but certainly bake them into the process of participation.


5. Identify both power users and up and coming users.

which learning style are you?

A sharp little video from a bunch of interesting ethnographic research folks called Point Forward.

I like their simple framework for referencing 4 basic learning styles across the innovation process.

Key question is whether we are very good at ensuring we have the 4 different learning styles in our organisaton to help us move through the innovation process.

Innovation as a Learning Process from Roger Shealy on Vimeo.

iZine for the iPhone

I remember when Ezines were all the rage... not sure if this is still what people call online magazines but this is a beautiful example of an Izine... yup, magazine for your iPhone.

Check out the video...

unfriend-ly

It was back in January that Burger King kicked off their whopper sacrifice campaign rallying whopper lovers to drop 10 friends on Facebook for a free burger.

This week the New Oxford American Dictionary named its word of the year as UNFRIEND.

Blimey, who would have thought we would find ourselves with so many friends through our myriad of networks we'd have to start scaling back on them!

Yesterday I noticed on Linkedin that my network update referenced one of my contacts as reaching 300 connections which is known as the Double Dunbar! This refers to Robin Dunbar an anthropologist who proposed that we are only able to maintain a network of 150 connections before things start to break down... you know, you find it too hard to catch up and stay in touch in any meaningful way. So my Linkedin contact has double the amount of people in their network they can 'properly' maintain a relationship with.... Question is what constitutes a maintaining a relationship in a Linkedin context or any context for that matter? How many people in our network are like 'rainy day' contacts... ? Is there a point where we simply need to sacrifice quantity for quality?

Recently I have also been UNFRIENDING myself from the abundance of e-newsletters I seem to have oversubscribed to as well. in an average day, I seem to find myself on the receiving end of somewhere in the vicinity of 30 daily newsletter updates (and that is just on my work email). Assuming I spent an average of 5 minutes having a read of these, that would be 2.5 hours in my day! I know I am not alone here either as just this week I have had this conversation with a few friends who are all claiming the same need - to unsubscribe from their over abundance of emails updates, UNFRIEND the ones that just don't make the cut anymore and reclaim their day.


There has been a lot of discussion from thinkers like Tim Ferris (the 4 hour week) where he has 17 posts on email detox as well as a video of the celebrity tech blogger Robert Scoble talking about how he gets throgh 622 RSS feeds as well as tens of thousands of emails!



Make unfriending your friend!

A few thoughts on innovation

thanks to Tim from Dynamic Horizons for this thought provoking number.

All I want for Christmas is a Playstation EyePet

Speaking of reality, or lack of it. I’ve been babbling on about augmented reality finding its way to our shores (or NOT finding its way). Well, guess what… IT’S HERE AND IT’S BRILLIANT!

Introducing the Playstation EyePet. I stumbled upon this on YouTube, but I hear from a secret source that this is launching here in only two weeks!!

Tickle him and he laughs, poke him and he jumps, roll him a ball and he chases it. EyePet is a responsive virtual pet that reacts to your every move, providing entertainment and fun for the whole family.

First, you bring your little virtual pet to life – explained to you by a scientist, who also explains how to set up your Playstation Eye camera. Then the PlayStation Eye camera watches your interactions in front of your TV and relays that image onto your screen where the EyePet itself lives. This allows you to then interact with the pet as if it were scampering around the table or floor space in front of you.

This little augmented reality critter reacts to your movement, interacting with you, as if you’d just brought him home from the pet shop (or zoo…)

All of this is made possible by the power of PS3 which has enabled EyePet’s developers to create incredible graphics and animation. Not only is he cute, but he’s smart too.

Go Playstation. And to all you parents out there, start saving, Christmas is only around the corner… Check it out...

The Fun Theory

Even car manufacturers can leverage fun.

The Fun Theory, is the latest campaign by Volkswagen via ad agency DDB Stockholm.
It's not just about proving consumers with fun, but provides them fun in exchange for socially responsible actions. This reward has seen a marked increase in people caring out the action.

Check out the video's of a set of subway stairs transformed into a walking piano and a ‘never-ending’ bin that manage to change people’s typical behaviour for the better.





The latest one is the series has just been uploaded - check is out


And all of this with barely a reference to Volkswagen.

I wonder if there is not some big learning's in this for charities & governments?

Sort of related is a TED video by Rory Sutherland

He talks about how advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. He's point is that changing the perceived value is as powerful as changing the real value.
He is very entertaining & funny (adding some perceived value), but also has some real value in his content. Worth sparing the 10 mins to check it out here: http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html

be natural

Something seems to be in the air in Europe as the French and Germans and Americans are keeping things real for women in magazines.

It may have been a few years since Dove's campaign for Real Beauty but there seems to be some real momentum gathering behind this trend around authenticity.

In France, there are calls by the government to include warnings on any ad, labels or posters where women have been airbrushed. The campaign is being headed up by Valerie Boyer, a conservative parlimentarian who rightly points out how airbrushed images only create a false reality for women to aspire to. We'll be watching like hawks to see how and if this story develops.

In Germany, the most popular womens magazine there, Brigitte is banning models from appearing. They are now opting for 'real women' only to appear in the magazine from 2010. This is such a huge move for a magazine but it is responding to complaints from a proportion of its 700k readers. The magazine is a familiar diet of fitness, lifestyle, recipes and sex (of course), which is apparently read by a slightly more upwardly mobile gal.

The editor in chief, Andreas Lebert of Brigitte says that "Today's models weigh around 23% less than normal women".

This year American title Glamour also published an image of a plus size model without airbrushing her. It even sounds rediculous to have to be so excited about such a break through!

Is this a hint that women will no longer be fed a diet of unachievable images to aspire to? let's wait and see before we pop the champas.

The more than small change session in Melbourne

This time last week we were packing down the signs and breathing a sigh of relief that our second Think Fresh 09 speaker event went off without any major hick ups.

We had three more interesting speakers this time round.

We kicked off with Kate Kendall the online editor for Marketingmag.com.au.
She spoke about Social Media - fad or here to stay?
She shared this video as an opener, which we have had great number of requests for a copy of.

She went on to share some great social media tools and examples of the good (Dell who has earned $3M in revenue from Twitter), the bad & the ugly of brands in the social media space.

One of her key tips was that integration with other media is the key to social media’s success. She also added that brands need to decide for themselves if & how they can use it, do their research (copy & improve), and should look to consumers not the experts to guide them through the social space.

Those interested in chatting more about social media with those in the know, checkout http://twitter.com/socialmelb, on Fridays, 8am @ Mr Tulk, where you can catch Kate Kendal and sometimes us from Melbourne strategy team.

Next up was Toby Dewar, McDonald's National Media & Sponsorship Manager.

He talked us through the transformation of the Macca's business with a very successful ending.
They sent themselves some pretty impressive goal in 2002 for the Australian business;

1. Fix the food
2. Get relevant
3. Become Australia's favourite brand

While number 3 is still a work in process, but there have been improvements in leaps & bounds that have made not only a difference to the bottom line, but has seen them confident in the inheritance they will leave for the future managers of the business.

We finished up with Kate Gunby, OMD Insights Director. Kate presented the findings from our latest research - Future Shapers. The research is a deep dive into the issues organisations are wrestling with to future proof themselves against the constantly changing business environments.

The GFC (no surprise there) was a one the Big Issues business leaders are facing, but accountability, media fragmentation & increased number of communications stakeholders were the longer term concerns.

Another key outtake was in the area of marketing budgets, with most expecting to invest the same YOY, and more looking to increase than decrease.

In terms of channels, more funds are going to be allocated to explore the areas of Online, Mobile and DM at the expensive of Sponsorships and Print.

While this event spells the end of the Think Fresh Festival for 2009, Think Fresh is all about stimulating the conversation, so it is only the beginning....the future really is coming...lets embrace change and be part of it.....it's over to you.

Competing for the Future

I just stumbled across a post by Vijay Govindarajan, who is an academic who blogs on business strategy & innovation.

I thought it was interesting to share in light of a our Think Fresh theme.

He includes a framework for strategic thinking, with focus on competiting for the future instead of competiting for the present.

Worth a look.

Getting Fresh with OMD Clients

• 
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  
  
• Last Friday, as part of the Think Fresh, we invited 3 of our clients to talk to OMD about the future of their business and the challenges they’re facing.
  The session was a great and feedback from OMD staff has called for more of it!
  
• We kicked off the panel with Leigh Miles, Category Manager of Spreads at Fonterra. Leigh gave us a very entertaining look at the Dairy Category.
  

Leigh talked to the importance of staying in touch with bigger consumer trends with the example of how butter was the bad guy of spreads in the 90’s but a shift in health trends where consumers want to know what’s in their food has seen a return to butter as the natural alternative to margarine.

• Leigh also discussed the growth of private label brands in our supermarkets as a major challenge for the Fonterra business. He believes that there are two advantages that brands have over private label that need to be leveraged to stop consumers going to the dark side:
  1. The ability to invest in marketing a brand
  2. Putting resource into innovation

Next up, Nikki Clarkson, National Marketing Director at Austereo told us about their future challenges and what they’re doing to future proof the business.

• Austereo is facing challenges not too dissimilar from ours when it comes to how we use technology for communications and remain relevant. With the old adage, Content is King, Nikki’s challenge for the future is how Austereo maintains the distribution of content effectively across any channel in which radio can be heard or viewed.


• To future proof the business Nikki talked about nurturing current talent and always being on the hunt for the next big thing. They have dedicated talent hunters hanging out in comedy clubs, scouring talent shows, attending comedy festivals and listening to tonnes of demo tapes to stay in touch with who could be the next Hamish and Andy.

Finally, Cratis from Open Universities Australia gave us a brilliant overview of how their business has grown in recent years and talked his big challenges:

• Finding more of the right distribution partners such as MyCareer and Seek are key to growing their business
• Cracking the creative challenge around getting the tone right for a busy adult audience and improving the overall customer experience is crucial to their ongoing success

We hope to make the client panel an ongoing program at OMD so look out for more of it in the near future.

The Forecasters session in Melbourne

Sheesh - there was so much great stuff to soak up it has taken me a few days to digest and report it back on this hot little date last week.

About 85 of our nearest and dearest joined us for this session, thank god we had enough savoury muffins to go around.

We kicked off with the delectable Risto Sampola, technology blogger at 3aw and Owner of Deeptank, personal technology training. 3 of his top tips:

1. Location based GPS communications are on their way and it won't be long till we are receiving real time communications offering up to the minute offers and communications from brands

2. RFID codes are being integrated into smart phones and will rule out bar codes in the future. Will mean customised comms on mobiles are on their way... by purchase etc!

3. Video is being integrated into static comms like print and outdoor check out http://www.americhip.com/

Next up was Charlie Nelson, futurist and quant confucious:

1. Crucial to understand the past demographic and social trends to recognise patterns on the horizon - Curiosity is king!

2. The wisdom of the masses - better learning from the collective perspective of the masses than listening to a handful of experts. check out James Surowiecki

3. Three potential scenarios for the economy - Goldilocks (not too hot not too cold) / Second Wave (a not so deep but longer laster downtown) / Victims of Success (we get spanked by a stronger recovery and super high inflation rates)

Finally our beloved Leigh Terry, Managing Partner at OMD and digitial whizz kid. He presented the Magnicifent 7 - considerations for 2010

1. Using all assets to invite customers (and non customers) to interact with you

2. using all of your touchpoints to engage ‘beyond the box e.g. http://tiny.cc/JBLOJ

3. Make our comms come a-LIVE e.g. Orange their Glastonbury bull campaign

4. Get participation rather than simply ‘story-telling’? Quests and challenges e.g. British Army

5. Everyone needs to be using search marketing

6. Social Media is more than blogs and tweets - think inside out first... customer experience!

7. Improve the brand experience check out dominos BFD

So... we gorged ourselves on fresh thinking... still digesting it all. Tomorrow we'll be feasting again!

The future of creativity

As we are all focused on Thinking Fresh about the future. I have noticed two recent businesses that are reinventing the value of creativity (as we traditionally deal with it in the marketing business).

A B&T article covered the launch creative-exchange.com which is a site where creative agencies can sell ideas, that their current clients didn't run, to others. Sort of like the Trading Post of creative ideas. I assume there would be a cost advantage to buying someone else's second hand ideas?

There are other things apart from ideas available, including research & music.

As it only launched today it will be interesting to see how big the market is for this type of service.

On the flip side, in the US clients are doing away with the creative agencies all together.

Unilever goes crowdsourcing to spice up Peperami's TV ads "Food giant drops ad agency Lowe after 16 years and puts up a $10,000 prize for creative marketing ideas".

Consumer created ads are nothing new. Doritos (who did it for $12.79) , Southwest Airlines, and Saucony are just a very few examples.

The interesting thing about Unilever's decision is their attitude.

• They have broken a 16 year relationship: " Unilever said it has no plans to retain a full-time ad agency for the Peperami account in future."


• And taken Lowe's idea with them: "the (winning) ad has to feature the cheeky Peperami character Animal, created by Lowe London."

The website http://www.ideabounty.com/ that consumers are to submit their Peperami work has cracked many other briefs, though mainly charity clients.

Both creative-exchange.com and http://www.ideabounty.com/ will no doubt open some debate on the ownership of ideas, as well as the value placed on creative ideas & relationships.

Augmented Reality goes mobile

Following up from Jacquie's post on augmented reality there is more (overseas) news on this technology;

The Wall Has Fallen: 3 Augmented Reality Apps Now Live in iPhone App Store

Lifting this technology from the fixed desk and taking it to the streets does feel like a step forward for uses & uptake in this technology.


Closer to home, well close enough for us to claim it (like Pavlova & Pharlap), a NZ company used AR for their Valentine’s Day activity.
Nothing says "I love you" like some Augmented Reality
Here is link to a video & more information
(hat tip to The Newspaper Works for the link)

OMD's future gallery opens up in Melbourne

what better way to see out the end of a Monday than a champagne toast to interesting-ness.

In the last few days our ideation room, AKA The White Room turned into OMD's Future Gallery space and we've invited all our friends and colleagues to come step inside and time travel over the next 2 weeks.

As you can see it was rousing affair full of air kissing and inspiration....

What's going on there:

-There's the Timeline wall (2010 to 2040)showcasing what ideas are becoming extinct and what is about to evolve.

-A bunch of inspiring case studies to warm the cockles and make you wish 'you'd done that'

-Classic quotes to steal and throw into your 'future' presentations

-A video corner to get yourself up to speed on stats, facts, social media, techy comms and case studies

-A digital radio to plough through and check out fly by night stations like Pink Radio (yes, pink the singer)

It's a living breathing space to enjoy, write thoughts down or share a few opinions on the walls.

Come get it whilst it's hot!

Seeing the after before

ThinnerView is a new tool that digitally enhances photos of people to show them at their goal weight.

All you need to do is send in your photo and a digital 'artist' will create a custom made image of you at your goal weight. The idea behind it is that you're more likely to lose weight by being able to visualise your goal.

The tool supposedly creates your after photo based on bone structure and build. And as they say all for less than the price of a single dinner out...well its actually $14.99US (about $18 Aussie).

Do you want fries with that? You can also whiten your teeth and have wrinkles and blemishes in your photo removed!

I thought it was pretty handy if you plan to lose weight but don't want to wait to upload your slimmer self on Facebook.

Some gyms in the US are reportedly using the tool as a way to sign more people up for memberships, or are giving it away for free to premium members.

A simple way to sign up people who want to see the 'after' before!

Exploiting me exploiting chaos

This is a brilliant example of how to live and breathe the message.

Those clever clogs at Trendhunter have come up with a super community driven marketing idea for their Chief Trend Hunter - Jeremy Gutsche's new book - EXPLOITING CHAOS.

Firstly I'll need to tell you about the clever clogs marketing idea as this will help explain where I fit in...

If you are anything like me, you subscribe to lots of interesting newsletters and yet don't read them very often. Just so happens, I received my regular Trendhunter weekly read and opened this one to discover something a bit intriguing.

There was reference to a soon to be released book EXPLOITING CHAOS - 150 ways to spark innovation during times of change and the chance to get hold of the first chapter by becoming part of their 'revolution'. hmmm... what does heck that mean? I aint no revolutionary...

In simple terms, I discovered it meant 2 really easy to do things:

By registering your twitter or blog account with Trendhunter, they would:

1. Send you a special link to share the 1st chapter with your readers (friend get friend idea)

2. Distribute 100,000 views to their launch partner friends based on how many times visitors click on their custom EXPLOITING CHAOS URL… (inspire loads of proactivity from their base)

So, I unashamedly joined up... hey, I wanted to read the first chapter and here's our super special custom link for readers of this blog:

http://www.exploitingchaos.com/sneakapeak/25

Anyway, I have read the first chapter... a little cynical given the title didn't sound remarkably different from a few recent books I have stumbled across but honestly... this sneak peak was refreshingly inspiring and I am keen to get my grubby mitts on this book when it comes out in all good bookshops.

The book, (well first chapter I read) is littered with gems, historical case studies, quotes and definitions and an Exploiting Chaos Framework.

What I also like is their recognition of changing reading habits so this is a book that addresses this well and can be read in 2 ways:

-The traditional way... cover to cover

-The Exploiting Chaos way... read the headlines and use them to tell the quick and digestible story version.

Check it out... here It won't take long long to plough through it and I'd be surprised if you didn't get one nifty learning from the experience!

Reach out & touch me

The keyboard may well become redundant in the face of the growing use of touchscreens within personal computers, according to a new survey by market researcher NPD’s DisplaySearch.
The report estimates that the touchscreen market will almost triple by 2015, from $3.6bn to $9bn.

Touch screen penetration has been rapidly increasing in mobile phones, portable navigation devices, gaming and other applications. Over the next several years, touch screens will undergo strong growth in large-size applications, such as retail, ticketing, point of information and education/training.

Touch screen PC's are available now , but techie bloggers are hanging for the Apple tablet.

The next Windows release - Windows 7 will offer a lot for touchscreen users & help drive uptake.

Will this spell the end of the keyboard and possiblying even typing?

when music meets technology and soft porn

Check out this crazy project...it is a collaboration between Calvin Harris, Sony Music Entertainment, and a bunch called Bare who have invented conductive body ink. In essence you turn humans into circuit board...

If you can speak tech talk... you'll know what this all means:

“Ink-human circuitry” was painted onto the models while two Arduinos were used to provide an analog-to-digital connection with a computer. From there, patching environment Max/MSP translates data to MIDI where the models can then perform by closing circuits with their hands or feet.

Calvin Harris is calling it the Humanthesizer - geddit!





Bare suggest this technology can be used for 'dance, music, computer interfaces, communication and medical devices'


Like the fact this is technology bringing flesh and blood back together... let's face it, mostly technology enables us to do most things whilst avoiding 'face time'

Is augmented reality old news already?

Given the topic “The Future is Now” is at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now, I was searching for some examples of what’s going on with augmented reality in other markets…(building on Alex’s May AR blog post). I was a tad disappointed to discover that all the examples I found were either a) from other markets or b) been and gone, done and dusted. Did we miss the boat on this one? Or has the boat not arrived yet?

In America, Doritos released a "late night" range of chips, where snackers could experience(via webcam) a 3D "live" performance by artists such as Blink-182. All you had to do was visit doritoslatenight.com and hold up the symbol on the back of the chip bag to your webcam. You then select your favourite artist, and they magically appear right in front of your eyes. It’s great to see marketers thinking “outside the bag” if you know what I mean. It seems the promotion is no longer active, so here's a link to a consumer posted YouTube video (a tad long, but you get the picture) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XFsDZyOW6Y&feature=related

Again, in America, at selected Lego stores, shoppers can see their future creations by holding up lego boxes in front of an interactive kiosk, where via augmented reality a computer screen reflects back the image of that shopper holding up the finished product. It’s a great way to literally get the product in consumers hands –seeing is believing! This has been on the cards for Lego since 2007.

In December 2008 MINI created a print ad that when viewed though a web cam produces a virtual 3D model of their MINI Cabrio convertible on screen. The ad was featured in German automotive magazines.

So what's next and how can we take advantage of all this amazing new technology?