Fast, dramatic changes in the digital space have given brand [...]]]>
The following excerpt is from The Content Marketing Institute’s blog. It’s a guest post written by David Germano, Vice President, Content Marketing, outlining a different approach to owned media that brands should consider to truly see a sustainable owned media impact.

Fast, dramatic changes in the digital space have given brand marketers new opportunities to earn and sustain the consumer’s attention without paid media. Social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, to name just three, empower brands to communicate directly with an audience.

While many brands rush to leverage these direct-to-consumer channels, few have altered their brand narratives and their approach to content creation as they move from paying others to broadcast their brand content to leveraging it themselves for direct consumer engagement.

While many brands rush to leverage these direct-to-consumer channels, few have altered their brand narratives and their approach to content creation.  This lapse happens as they move from paying others to broadcast their brand content to leveraging it themselves for direct consumer engagement.

For the full-length version, click here to read “How Marketers are Shifting to Owned Media to Drive Impact.”

A billboard in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati read “You’re so over Over-the-Rhine” followed by their signature #life stinks hashtag.  Needless to say the residents of Over-the Rhine did [...]]]> Tidy Cat’s new outdoor campaign trying to generate social media activity around the fact that #lifestinks had a hiccup last week here in Cincinnati.

A billboard in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati read “You’re so over Over-the-Rhine” followed by their signature #life stinks hashtag.  Needless to say the residents of Over-the Rhine did not find it so amusing, raising their own stink. The billboard was covered the next day .

Offputting Billboard Makes National News
This campaign has certainly generated buzz about cat litter – with several blog posts and news stories picked up nationally.  So if the goal of the campaign was to raise awareness and generate conversation about cat litter, a topic that usually doesn’t attract national attention to say the least, it is a success.

Should a Campaign Build Buzz or Business?
But the campaign leaves much to be desired. The Tidy Cats website mentions the theme that “We can’t guarantee a life without stink, but we do guarantee our litter.”  With an upcoming NOMOREPU tour, Life stinks video series at NOMOREPU.com, and the initial outdoor campaign, the objective of this campaign is unclear.

Is the goal of this campaign to share the message that Tidy Cats cat litter is guaranteed?  The #life stinks hash tag is so broad; a very diverse audience could post to that theme.  Are they even pet owners?  Do they care whether cat litter is guaranteed? Will this type of social discussion drive sales for Tidy Cats?

Tapping Out of Home Strengths
While I am a big advocate of the out of home media space and how it can be used creatively with other paid, owned and earned media to create big results for brands; I think this campaign is a miss.  The conversation around #lifestinks is depressing; we all get enough of this through the media outlets. The boards are branded but, with such a small logo, Tidy Cats is trying to pique interest in the campaign with a broad audience. Instead they should be generating brand exposure with a targeted audience — playing to billboards’ strengths.

A Humorous Tease Campaign Misses the Point
A consumer who does not use the #lifestinks hashtag or visit nomorepu.com is missing the ultimate campaign message of the campaign – which is that Tidy Cats guarantees their product.  Having not shared to #lifestinks, I only found out about the guarantee, while I was researching the campaign for this blog.

:: By Gretchen Reisner, Specialist, OOH

With 1 million downloads made in the first 24 hours of its release, Instagram’s long-awaited Android app has clearly been well-received.

The Android release was a bit of a tidal wave as you can only access the platform via its mobile app or using your Instagram login to use web-based [...]]]>

With 1 million downloads made in the first 24 hours of its release, Instagram’s long-awaited Android app has clearly been well-received.

The Android release was a bit of a tidal wave as you can only access the platform via its mobile app or using your Instagram login to use web-based options that use the Instagram API.

More users mean more potential for your audience being on the platform. So a quick recap of Instacontent, from me and elsewhere, is below. But before you dive into the how-to content, ask how this fits into your larger social > online > marketing > business strategy. If it doesn’t roll all the way up, consider Instagram part of the shiny new that’s not worth investing time and resources. At least not yet.

Watch How Brands Do: There are a variety of brands with an established Instagram presence.Luxury and beverage brands have quickly taken to the platform, having found a user base. But the media are also using it to give you backstory access around events like the upcoming U.S. Presidential election.

Manage Your Feed: Statigr.am, by far, looks to be the best way to manage your feed, track statistics and even organize your photos and the people you follow into lists. It even allows you to message each other users through the site,  gives you promotional tools and promotes contests from other brands and users.

Use Supporting Apps: If you’re taking pics with your phone, you can access a handful of apps to make your images stand out and better represent what you’re trying to communicate. And there’s a lot of Instatips too to help you optimize your use of Instagram.

Back that Pic Up: You’ll want to have a backup copy of your photos, right? Well Google+ app users have it easiest as Google+ can automatically backup your phone’s pics. But there’s also options for Dropbox users and everyone else.

Take It Elsewhere: Some brands are tapping into the API-provided portability of Instgram content. Starbucks streams relevant user pics into its online Coffeehouse. And any user can easilystream their pics into a Tumblr or onto Facebook for non-Instafans to check out their work. And don’t forget sites like Animoto make it easy to turn your pics into a video.

Go Offline: Photowalks are a great way to get a handle on the app and its potential. I’ve organized two of them and they’re fairly simple to execute. If you’re not about socializing in real time, you can still use any number of sites to print your pics in a number of ways. I’ve used CanvasPop for example and highly recommend it.

It’s Deja Vu All Over Again
With apologies to Yogi Bera, I’m already seeing a lot of Twitter “how-to” content becoming relevant again. From filling out your profile and using an avatar to posting content before following a ton of people — many of those basics apply here (and to Pinterest!). You can even project an Instafeed by user or hashtag, to create a visual back channel at events.

How’s that for a link-laden, to-do list? It’s not even taking into account Instagram-related content I’ve curated on Pinterest and Scoop.It. Which is a reminder that there’s a lot of opportunity and creativity in this site. If your audience is not on it, you can still use it for your own personal reward.

::By Kevin Dugan, Director of Marketing and on Instagram as @prblog.

Cross-posted to my personal blog.
Infographic via Visual.ly 

The 
My colleague Alec Painter and I attended South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) on behalf of Empower MediaMarketing to learn about the latest and what’s next in the digital realm. But the buzz began well before we landed in Austin.

The loudest pre-SXSW Interactive festival buzz spoke to the trend of social discovery services.

If you’ve ever tried to find someone in a crowd, it’s easy to see why apps like Highlight and Glancee were predicted to break out in wide adoption during the sprawling, five-day festival. We use the apps and they came in handy during SXSWi.

Social Experiment
In fact, we used SXSWi to put each service to the test. Alex and I tried to connect with at least 10 people each using Highlight and Glancee. We know there are more apps like the two, but for this test we chose just two.

As we expected, the responses we received were mixed. Many of our interactions took place in-app and did not result in an in-person meeting. But most of them ranged from no response to fun dialogues resembling a texting thread. We did also have people trying to physically meet up with us, in person, based on our close proximity.

The crowds make it tough to find someone, even with these apps. Out of the twenty people we reached out to, only one had a lot in common with us, including mutual friends and interests. And we couldn’t track him down in a large crowd. This proves that these services do provide value, bu proximity does not eliminate physical obstacles.

Layers on the Social Graph
Lauri Schwartz, Chief Technology Catalyst at McCann Worldgroup was one of many who carried on a nice dialogue with us. When asked to weigh-in on social discovery apps she replied, “they’re a bit stalkery at first. But I love the concept of applying intelligent layers on top of a person’s Facebook social graph.”

Privacy issues around these apps is a definite concern. People have been adding Alec and I as contacts without our being able to approve the connection as you can on LinkedIn or Facebook. This makes us wonder if these services can ever reach mass scale beyond early tech adopters. People come from around the world to connect and share at SXSW, the same is true for most events. But outside of this context, is there value to social discovery when we’re sitting at home or out at a restaurant with friends?

Between our SXSWi experience and the fact that these apps are opt-in, users decide to share their location and interests with others, we think these services and their technology have a promising future. Based on the early adoption of these apps over the last week alone in Austin, we’re sure to see brands tap into these tools to engage with their consumers.

:: By Drew McKenzie, Digital Strategy Director 

I live in a house of women.  Precisely, I live in a house with my [...]]]>
The interest in Pinterest has decreased into a steady roar after seemingly exploding into social media circles a few months ago. My personal interest in the shiniest new social media craze applies directly to my home life.

I live in a house of women.  Precisely, I live in a house with my wife, teenage daughter, a female cat and during college breaks a 21-year-old daughter.  Full disclosure: I also have a 10-year-old son, but since he’s not socially connected, female nor does he have his own source of income, he doesn’t exist to most of my marketing friends reading this.

During the Christmas holiday I was first introduced to Pinterest.  After witnessing my wife and daughters spending the equivalent number of hours over the holiday that it took to send men into space, I decided it was time to create my own profile and check it out.

Pinterest 101
Think of Pinterest as a bulletin board.  It’s socially-enabled but, at its core, Pinterest is the online equivalent of an old-fashioned, cork bulletin board where you can pin things you like from the Web for your future reference. And if you make your boards public, other Pinterest users can view your boards and repin items from it that they like.

Pinterest allows us to share, promote and seek out relevant information of interest to us. If you like this blog post for example, you can pin it with a short description to your “Social Media” board. If you find a funny online video or photo you can pin it with a short description to your “Funny Things” board. Pinterest automatically gives all new users a set of boards so it’s easy to get started.

The Pinterest Passion
These boards become the digital file folder of your life. And thanks to Pinterest’s social media functionality, the boards are also an opportunity for self-expression. Users can easily link Pinterest to their Facebook and Twitter accounts to share content with their social networks. In fact, the social connectivity combined with the fact that more online consumers share content than create content, has contributed to Pinterest’s initial success.

User Base Skews Female
Pinterest’s primary user base is female. These social features are of great value to my wife and daughters.  They can share recipes, hobbies, their favorite TV shows, songs, movies, professional articles and any number of interests that they share with other women. However Pinterest is attracting males as well as media brands and consumer brands to pin and share content.

How have I used Pinterest?  To date, I’ve shared several research articles and even an infographic about farts. Yep, social media has allowed me to share my love of simple humor with the world of Pinterest while communicating with other research professionals.

Uncovering Insights for Marketers
Speaking of research, how can Pinterest be used to uncover consumer insights?  Still in its early stages, Pinterest is simply trying to meet consumer demand and has not formally made its API available for widespread access. And since it is largely driven by images, much of the content cannot be tracked by traditional text analytics.

Pinterest doesn’t collect demographic information on its users either. So while there are some infographics out there on Pinterest and its user base, their methods and sampling should be examined closely before considering how broadly the results can be applied.

Despite these quantitative limitations, Pinterest does provide a quick, free and basic qualitative tool to provide additional, anecdotal insights for brand marketers. Marketers can easily see what pages and images from a website are being pinned by entering  http://pinterest.com/source/”adomain.com” into a browser, replacing “adomain.com” with the site. If portions of a site are of interest to users, take Fast Company for example, it will become instantly apparent. The descriptions entered can also be helpful in determining tone or sentiment of the users pinning the site. However if no one is pinning the site, it will come up as a 404 error.

Digging Deeper On Pinterest
By searching on topics you want to research further, you can simply click on the results, sorting them by pins, boards or people. You can even use this to lurk…err conduct ethnographic research on a user. By reviewing my wife’s boards, I can conclude she is from Texas, enjoys cooking, scrapbooking and likes TV comedies like “The Office” and “The Middle.”  After 22 years of marriage even I know these things about her.  However, I was surprised to see a board devoted to elementary teaching activities – a profession she left when we had our oldest daughter.  Note to self…talk to wife more when kids aren’t around!

Brands using social media monitoring tools have additional ways to explore Pinterest.  By using Radian6, I easily was able to locate several hundred thousand Pinterest’s pins over the past three months on a specific topic. Monitoring tools do not currently appear to allow monitoring of site content or images, but you can see what Pinterest users wrote as a description for each pin and board created. As not all users will include a brand name in their posts, this is of limited value.  Hopefully, these monitoring tools and an evolving API will continue to bring new ways to measure site content and image scans for more potential insights.

Until then, consider using these simple techniques to gather directional insights from a brand’s customers on Pinterest. These insights can help inform a brand’s Pinterest strategy and provide ideas on how to make a site more pin-able.  For more background on Pinterest, visit Empower MediaMarketing’s Pinterest board focused solely on Pinterest.

:: By Kirby Thornton, Director of Consumer Insights, Decision Sciences

An Ad Promoting…Another Ad?
Super Bowl ads [...]]]> Volkswagen’s Barkside is a fun teaser promoting the brands’ involvement in the Super Bowl — as an advertiser. It continues to tap into the Star Wars phenomena and mashes it up with a costumed pet meme to come up with this fun, minute-long teaser ad.

An Ad Promoting…Another Ad?
Super Bowl ads have become the TV equivalent of a retail brand’s flagship store. The ads, like the stores, forgo much of the brand’s established look and feel for something new. Advertisers want to make a big statement that gets consumers talking and ultimately buying.

In the past few years, we’ve seen several examples of how media convergence has Super Bowl advertisers building much bigger campaigns around their 30 second spot.

Streaming & Sharing the Game
Between advertisers investing more to support their TV spots to the news that the game will be live streamed this year, we’re sure to see more interesting campaigns from advertisers.

Hopefully we’ll see a better integration of mobile and the Super Bowl this year. UPDATE: Chevy just announced it’s Super Bowl App.  Last year there was no obvious app that added value to the game. This year Verizon users will have access to the live stream on their phones. But mobile doesn’t simply mean outside. The multi-screen experience holds much promise for advertisers  gearing up for game day.

The stakes are high and whether its a 30 second spot, social media, mobile or other media play, marketers and consumers will have so much to experience they’ll have to remember to watch the game.

:: By Kevin Dugan, Director of Marketing 

The changes span the Twitter platform, [...]]]>
Twitter began to roll out a design overhaul last week for many of its users, and everyone else will get it sometime within the next three weeks. The changes are quite possibly the most significant shift Twitter has undertaken since its launch nearly six years ago.

The changes span the Twitter platform, including:

My colleagues will tell you I’ve got an Instagram addiction. While I’m not sure about that, the social photo-sharing platform has a loyal following.

Instagram has shown me some great examples of brands testing and learning the concept of No Channels.

Brand Power
Of the 35 or more brands I [...]]]>

My colleagues will tell you I’ve got an Instagram addiction. While I’m not sure about that, the social photo-sharing platform has a loyal following.

Instagram has shown me some great examples of brands testing and learning the concept of No Channels.

Brand Power
Of the 35 or more brands I follow on Instagram, (RED) seems to have the most fun playing up the visual nature of its brand and the various partnerships it has with other brands.

But more than brand awareness, (RED) is smart about giving followers simple calls to action. In one example, (RED) is using Instagram to encourage users to tap into a promotion for the (RED)-branded Shazam app for music discovery on the go. The proceeds benefits the non-profit’s push for AIDS awareness.

Convergence & Cross-Platform Thinking
The promotion starts and ends on a mobile device and it uses two niche apps to get users to support (RED). This is certainly not new. But it is a great reminder that thinking cross-platform doesn’t just apply to multiple platforms. In this case it applies to a single-device.

:: By Kevin Dugan, Director of Marketing

Cross-Posted to my personal blog 

Empower CEO Jim Price joined a variety of entrepreneurs, academics, venture capitalists and area leaders to discuss innovation.

“All About Innovation” was sponsored by Enquirer Media and [...]]]> 10 Ways Agencies & Media Are Changing

Empower CEO Jim Price joined a variety of entrepreneurs, academics, venture capitalists and area leaders to discuss innovation.

“All About Innovation” was sponsored by Enquirer Media and the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association. Held in the historic Emery Theatre, it felt like a wonderful paradox of sorts. However, while the focus was local innovation, the impact of the presenters content is far-reaching

*University of Cincinnati’s Dr. Jason Heikenfeld discussed an electrofluidic display technology which is being used to impact e-readers, smart phones, signage and display technology, boasting the color levels of traditional screens with the thickness of e-paper.

* Northern Kentucky University’s dean of informatics showed attendees how its state of the art program is cultivating sought after graduates for jobs in cyber security, mobile and social media, health technology as well as analytics, market intelligence and cloud computing.

Jim’s deck is above as he outlined 10 Ways Agencies and Media are changing. Technology, convergence and an unprecedented rate of change is impacting consumers, media and brands. Jim’s deck highlights some of this and, while the themes should ring familiar to the marketing industry, they’re helpful reminders as we head into 2012.

:: By Kevin Dugan, Marketing Director

Shift to Multiple Screens
While TV remains one of the most popular digital entertainment platforms, computers, tablets [...]]]>
Media channels continue to provide examples of the well-established media convergence trend. The integration of network programming, consumer electronics and mobile devices as well as social platforms is changing how consumers watch television.

Shift to Multiple Screens
While TV remains one of the most popular digital entertainment platforms, computers, tablets and mobile phones offer an alternative to the traditional TV set. Even record and skip technologies such as DVRs and TiVo have not slowed the shift to multiple screens for TV content viewing. In fact cable companies and sites like Hulu give users the ability to watch their shows on their terms.

Sets Get Social
Several TV manufacturers have models that tap into this shift. Vizio and Samsung offer TVs with built in applications like Twitter, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu that allow users to stream online services from the TV set itself. This is well on its way to becoming the standard for all TV sets in the near future.

Networks Truly Connecting With Consumers
TV networks are enhancing the viewing experience by engaging viewers while they watch – usually in real-time. The Bravo network engages viewers by encouraging them to interact online with each show’s celebrities, vote in polls to see relevant social media content and to gain access to exclusive content. Bravo does a great job of using mobile apps, their site and their shows to thread viewer content with their programming. Fox’ The X Factor also takes engagement a step further with an online community using gamification to encourage viewer participation as well as using real-time voting to influence the show’s content.

This second-screen experience, derived from the notion that one is watching TV while working with an additional device, is perhaps best exemplified with Yahoo’s IntoNow application. Available on mobile phones and tablets, the app listens to audio cues from news, sports and other broadcasts that matches with a database to serves up supplementary content to viewers on their device.

Paid & Earned Media Convergence
The amount of social TV examples we’re seeing speaks to the potential of paid and earned media convergence. MTV’s site boasts a heavy branch of mobile tools and options for its younger viewers to carry MTV with them seamlessly. And its social efforts leading up to their Video Music Awards, for example, garnered the attention of millions. In fact, its VMA Tweet Tracker broke the tweets-per-second record with 8,868 tweets at one point during the program.

It’s important, now, to ensure companies are capturing Social TVs full potential with the help of paid media. Both social and paid media efforts need to coincide under a consistent brand message to work together. TV still boasts some of the strongest viewership of all media channels and seamlessly integrated social media is helping  TV maintain this lead. Incorporating these two channels by leveraging complementary efforts across each can help brands garner the largest, most relevant level of engagement with consumers they have seen to date.

:: By Zach Murphy, Word of Mouth Marketing Associate