Thanks Trendcentral for this report on some recent cause marketing efforts
BURMA: IT CAN'T WAIT VIDEO CAMPAIGN,
TOMS TOURS' SHOE DROP VOLUNTEER VACATION
XBOX 360 GAMES FOR CHANGE CHALLENGE
Burma: It Can't Wait: Kicking off this week to raise awareness and bring to light the turmoil and human atrocities that are facing the Southeast Asian country of Burma is a star studded campaign that will release a different video vignette every day this month, featuring Hollywood elite such as Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston, Ellen Page, Sarah Silverman and Judd Apatow, to name a few. With the hope of building a one million person movement to free imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, and her fellow citizens of Burma, this campaign is a call to action for people all over the world to be part of a movement that could change the course of the country. While the issue is serious, the vignettes are very funny. The full campaign will live within social shopping site Fanista at BurmaItCantWait.org, where visitors also will be able to join the campaign, to watch bonus footage from the shoots, and to join Fanista, thereby allowing up to 10% of all of their entertainment purchases to be donated to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
TOMS Tours: After popularizing the cause-driven, buy-one-give-one consumer product model, TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie's latest endeavor may just do the same for branded volunteer vacations. What started off as an outreach program to help educate and activate consumers (wherein volunteers were invited to help distribute free shoes to children living in some of the world's poorest neighborhoods) has evolved into a full-fledged travel company called TOMS Tours. Due to instantaneous popularity of the "shoe drops", interested parties must fill out an online application to be considered for one of the 15 volunteer positions. Once selected, participants pay $1800 (plus international airfare) for an otherwise all-inclusive trip, to locations such as Argentina, that combines the village visits (where shoes are distributed) with regional group activities such as hiking, wine tasting, and sightseeing.
Xbox 360's Games for Change Challenge: Microsoft has partnered with Games For Change (an organization that supports and promotes social change through game play) to kick off a global competition that challenges socially minded individuals within the gaming community to make the world a better place. The competition, which will kick off in August to coincide with the 5th annual GFC Festival in New York, is open to college students and will require them to create a game in which the goal is to combat global warming. The top three contenders will be considered as potential Xbox LIVE Arcade downloads and their "socially minded" creators will receive cash prizes. The overall winner will also be awarded with an opportunity to apprentice at Microsoft's Interactive Business division as an intern.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Get your public involved in your business... without spending a million
Thanks once again Jeremiah for this great post a do-it-yourself consumer engagement servicve called UserVoice. Thanks and keep them coming Jeremiah------
Embrace your Customers
At Forrester, we use the term Embracing as a social strategy where customers and employees work together using social tools to build next-generation products. Quite a change for the strong headed product manager, who now has to set the roadmap, while in collaboration with customers.
Popular Examples: Dell and Starbucks
We’re all familiar with the popular Dell “Idea Storm” website that let customers vote for which features and products they wanted to be bore to the marketplace. In Dell’s case, the linux community asked for a UBUNTU box, which was created and launched and sold. I wish I was a fly on the wall when Dell’s strategic partners at Microsoft found out about this.
Recently, Starbucks has launched My Starbucks Ideas, where customers are voting for improved services or products in each of the stores. Looking at the site, the request for free wireless or ‘punchcards’ for frequent customers is under consideration or has been improved.
Both powered by SalesForce
Both of these sites are powered by Salesforce’s product, Ideas. Move on over, there’s a new player in town called UserVoice that offers the same features right on their site.
UserVoice, a new kid on the block
I’ve played around with UserVoice and even created a version for my own Web Strategy blog, the simple features made it easy to setup and let others submit ideas. I’ve not stress tested this service to see if it can withstand enterprise activity like SalesForce can, but it’s a nod to a common feature (voting) that we should start to expect to see in white label social networks. (in fact, I know of a few that are going to launch this)
Reporting, Query features, and easy to setup
Other UserVoice features to include Google Analytics, and the ability to collect demographic information and let owners know of suggestions. Owners of voting sites can also segment their customers by different purchasing sizes, in order to help prioritize. Also, polling features will help to put color around suggestions from users, and other conduits to improve the connectivity between employees and customers.
For example, I created this own Web Strategy UserVoice page where you can go and make suggestions on how I can improve this website.
Recommendations
If you’re a small company or individual blogger, or run a niche product, I encourage you to try out UserVoice, test to see how it scales, and come back and leave comments on your experience on this post. If you’re from a large company that has thousands or millions of customers, start with SalesForce and also trial UserVoice. Anyone that wants a fully custom user experience should start with SalesForce.
Update: I’ve received some tweets and comments also suggesting IdeaScale (which I think is the same as this product of the same name), I’ve not looked at it, please leave a comment if you’ve a review. Also, passionate CEO Matt from BrightIdea left a comment about his enterprise class competitor to SalesForce, I look forward to a formal Forrester briefing from him, let’s take a closer look at this growing segment.
What to Expect
UserVoice would make for a good partner for any of those white label social networks, and could even be an acquisition target for a vendor that’s not up to speed in this emerging feature set.
Expect other White Label Social Networking vendors to offer this feature, soon it will be on the ‘checklist’, of features. Customer voting? “Yup we got that.”
They aren’t the only ones to watch, Get Satisfaction, a support site for any product, anywhere, (no reason to go to that irrelvant corporate website) has launched, and customers are self-supporting each other, and some savvy companies have their employees there participating. Without surprise, I’m there representing Forrester, although there’s been no activity. Satisfaction is still very startup focused, I hope to see some Fortune 1000 companies appear on their site.
Lastly, UserVoice itself is, “eating their own dog food” so to speak, using their own service to improve their product, there’s already a small flurry of votes happening.
Social media disasters?
Thanks Jeremiah for this great list of social networking headaches
Have to ask though, where is Coke Zero's stinker thezeromovement.com?
2008
Have to ask though, where is Coke Zero's stinker thezeromovement.com?
2008
Louis Vuitton gets Brand-Jacked in Anti-Genocide Campaign
Artist creates and sells T-shirt demonstrating how the media turns a deaf ear to real world tradgeies such as genocide in Dafur, infringing on LV logo. LV fires back, with lawsuit, a groundswell begins. Submitted by Søren Storm HansenBurger King exec trash talks using daughter’s email
Not sure why he didn’t just create a new email address, that would have been a lot safer. Submitted by Hilker.Johnson and Johnson to bloggers: Hurry up and get dis-invited
Sounds like a mis-coordination, bad timing, and not a well thought through process that ended up getting scobleized, and Maryamized.Anonymous Unmasks Church of Scientology
The church of Scientology has been criticized by an anonymous group, a faceless mass that has created videos, staged marches and protests, and is subvert the Church from around the internet.
2007
Target’s Rounders program “This is our secret game”
Target encouraged it’s premier members in the rounders program to pump up it’s brand in a Facebook group, sadly, the covert operation ended up on blogs and then mainstream mediaHD DVD Decoded by Digg, unDugg, then Dugg again
Digg users publish HD code, industry freaks out, Digg maintains stance.
Wholefoods CEO caught being a troll
Whole Foods CEO, was anonymously trashing competitors and pumping company up on Yahoo finance boards.Apple’s dirty little secret plastered over NYC
Apparently, 18 months is all the iPod will run before you’ll need to buy a new one, says this video, where street teams went around defacing ads. Submitted by David Churbuck (I got his name right this time)Delta holds customers hostage
What’s worse than being held prisoner on Delta’s dirty plane? (Video), watching the crew getting off da plane. Oh, and no food, crying babies, but one talented videographer.Taco Bell’s infestation crawls into YouTube
A minor rat problem moved it’s way to YouTube, spreading faster and farther than expected, a total of more than one million views for all videos. Submitted by Graham Hill
2006
Data storage blogger posts industry price lists, sales reps cry f#ck!
Robin Harris, one of the most well known of the data storage blogosphere posts price lists that were received from various customers.Dell Laptop Explodes, news at 11 –on YouTube
More bad news for Dell, as laptops explode in Japan, all can see online.Comcast suffers from Narcolepsy
Sleepy Techician caught on YouTube, then fired. Also see Comcast must die blog, submitted by Jeff Jarvis.Hitachi Hell gets the finger
Angry customer gets bad service, writes long experience, and flips off HQ in picture, he’s also an influencer in the gaming communityThe naked NOKA chocolate uncovered
A premium chocolatier (Noka) had a tremendous markup ($309- $2,080 per pound) of their secretly re-packaged chocolate, was exposed as a fraud and spread on blogs. And their google results is really painful. Submitted by Whitney.AOL gets canceled –how to get get on my nerves
This guy really bothers me, I can see why Vincent Ferrari was miffed. It’s clear, he was dealing with the customer retention department. Nothing worse than the feeling of being held hostage. Submitted by David Alston.Airplane fiasco’s spread online: JetBlue
There are so many examples, such as a YouTube testimonial about JetBlue’s 8+ hours stranded in terminal. Related: JetBlue’s CEO responds after flights are cut months later due to storm.Starbucks Brandjacked by YouTube Video
Who wants a tasty frappuccino when there are kids starving? This was one of the first cases of brandjacking we saw.
2005
Why we Dwell on Dell Hell
Jeff Jarvis launches blog post that sends a flurry of PR negativty at Dell’s poor service, it’s since been improved.
2004
Kryptonite unlocked
Locks were disabled using a simple bic pen cap, spread on forums and blogs, one of the earliest examples that got mainstream attention.
2003
The Barbera Streisand Effect
Singer star tries to remove content from internet, it all goes downhill from there. I actually learned about this from reading my colleagues Groundswell book
Monday, May 5, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Australian first in twitter usage
From TechcruchWine Tasting is more of a traditional pursuit, like minded people gathering together to taste fine wine. Twitter wine tasting has been tried before, a wine tasting party that gathered web notables in person to try wines tried the concept back in March
. But until now no Twitter wine tasting event has focused on providing wine over a broad geographic region with a focus back on providing feedback via Twitter.Project Vino
Project Vino CEO Hugo Sharp had this to say on the event:
This event is one of the earliest instances of using Twitter to transfer an event as social and active as a wine tasting, into online realms. The end result? A resounding success. When you have a social drink which is best enjoyed sharing experiences with friends, it works perfectly with online communication tools.
As one of the twelve sent the wine it was both a fun, and an informative experience. It helps that the Kirrihill Wine
Defending the microsite
Some good points from Dwain Thomas via imedia connection
Despite some strong contrary opinions, a microsite can be an essential element of a marketing campaign. Find out how to ensure its success.
Despite some strong contrary opinions, a microsite can be an essential element of a marketing campaign. Find out how to ensure its success.
While my fellow iMedia contributor Sean Cummings preaches ditching your microsite, microsites are actually a perfect vehicle for extending a brand identity into a new environment to create a consistent yet unique brand experience. They are an intermediate step in driving a visitor to take action: register, purchase something, or request deeper information about a product or service. The action is considered to be the end goal or "reason for being" of a microsite.
This end goal is dictated by the overall campaign strategy. It is extremely important to define a basic strategy approach before developing the microsite. Who are the target users? How are they willing to accept information? What is the motivation for creating the microsite?
Once the strategy is developed, the user journey must be scripted. The microsite needs to create a logical journey that is clearly crafted based on customer profiles, customer expectations and the end goal of the microsite. By providing interactive touchpoints with visitors such as, for example, calculators, an interactive demo, or a means to supply feedback, the site is leading the visitor along a path.
The journey must be a consistent brand experience. Tone of voice, use of brand images, colors, and means or style of engaging visitors should all be consistent with the corporate site. Most importantly, the path needs to lead somewhere other than a dead-end each time.
The microsite URL word choice should of course be highly relevant to the campaign. Generally speaking, there are two approaches. The first is to register an independent URL such as microsites.com. One challenge with this approach is that domain names are becoming increasingly scarce, and finding an available great phrase can be difficult.
The second approach is the "forward slash" approach -- for example: concepglobal.com/microsites.
Importantly, the site should be optimized so that visitors searching for the site on search engines will find it easily, as this is where most visitors are starting. Also, the company home page should visibly and efficiently lead interested visitors to the microsite.
The return on investment with microsites can be extraordinary because of the highly effective measurement capabilities available. Visitors can be tracked from origination source, various types of data can be collected if this is required, and final sales can be measured depending on the nature of the campaign and product or service being sold. A microsite is the only way to truly engage the audience with the brand, product or service, and it's the only way to gather actual feedback in a measurable way. Mailers, posters, and advertisements do not afford this capability.
Guidelines:
- Don't leave microsites hanging around; they are meant to be present for a limited time, just like event posters.
- Don't use a microsite as a substitute for the main site.
- Don't overwhelm visitors with too much information; keep the site targeted and create a logical journey catered towards each visitor.
- Don't provide a dead-end journey that fails to deliver.
- Do keep the branding consistent.
- Do select an effective URL.
- Do ensure that the site has a reason for being (or call to action), that it's not simply asking visitors to make an effort with a new URL just to view advertising copy.
- Do create one central focus of the microsite -- i.e., one task for the user to accomplish.
- Do include tracking code to see who's visiting the site.
In conclusion, starting off with a sound strategy is the first step in creating a meaningful microsite that is part of an overall strategic campaign. This means understanding the motivations behind the campaign and staying aware of the audience's journey at every step. With consistent branding and coding that will maximize search engine visits, the microsite will be poised for success.
Dwain Thomas is managing director, Concep EvolutionSome great sites
http://nolaf.org/ - really nice engagement site that keeps the product (taco chips) involved in a relevant but not overwhelming way.
http://www.ponoko.com/ - Based in San Francisco, Ponoko is the world's largest marketplace for product plans. Creators and consumers use these plans to share, buy, sell and make individualized good
http://www.panedia.com/ - Create the world's best interactive destination content. Shot by Professional Photographers. Freely available to end users, with low monthly fees for commercial licensing. The world in images!
http://www.ponoko.com/ - Based in San Francisco, Ponoko is the world's largest marketplace for product plans. Creators and consumers use these plans to share, buy, sell and make individualized good
http://www.panedia.com/ - Create the world's best interactive destination content. Shot by Professional Photographers. Freely available to end users, with low monthly fees for commercial licensing. The world in images!
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