looking back

Russell posted a recording of Hyperland a few days ago. It’s an amazing documentary from the early 1990s that foretells the advent of the Web.

Faris has a fantastic review of the film and lots of background over on TIGS – I highly recommend taking a look. You can watch the film there too.

As I was re-watching this wonderful piece of web history, I was reminded of a significant upcoming ‘birthday’: the anniversary of the first internet banner ad:

The banner, for telco AT&T, appeared on the HotWired site on October 24th, 1994.

15 years ago.

From some perspectives, that feels like yesterday.

But considering how much things have changed, it also feels like a lifetime ago.

Back in 1994, my prized possession was a Walkman cassette player. I had to decide which cassette I’d take with me when I left the house. My music collection was vast, and one whole wall of my bedroom was covered in shelves full of CDs, cassettes, and vinyl.

We had a VHS player connected to an enormous box of a CRT TV that dominated one whole corner of the living room. We only had 4 free-to-air TV channels.

Most people didn’t own computers, and many of those who did had black-and-white monitors (although our home computer was an awesome Apple Mac Classic).

If you got lost, you had to ask someone for directions. They had whole sections on how to do that in foreign language classes at school.

And because a telephone was something that was wired into the wall in your house, you had no way of letting people know you were lost and were going to be late. Friends stood around, with nothing to do, waiting for hours for their mates to arrive.

Social groups stayed in touch by letter. We had penpals.

Photography was cumbersome. Most people sent their camera films off to be developed (and Kodak adverts were everywhere). You had to stick all your developed photos into an album and cart it round to your granny’s house.

If you needed to research something, you had to go to the library to look in the encyclopaedia. Those nice people at Britannica used to come knocking at the door, trying to sell 30-volume editions that would fill a room in your house.

But today, my iPhone brings all of that – and much more – to my pocket.

As Iain pointed out recently, the world today is amazing

I honestly can’t imagine what things will look like 15 years from now.

But looking back at how far we’ve come in the past decade-and-a-half, I’m excited.

And I’ll be raising a glass in honour of that first HotWired banner next Saturday.

counting sheep puts people to sleep

To everyone obsessing about how to increase page views, followers, or ‘friends’ on social networking sites,  here’s a simple word of advice:

Stop.

Forget keeping score: it doesn’t matter.

Reach doesn’t equate to engagement, and people are only ‘friends’ if you interact with them on a regular basis.

Let’s focus on what really matters.

Over to Seth…

Many thanks to Niall over at Simply Zesty for sharing this video
UPDATE: seems a few people have run similar stories in the past day or so too – this post from All Facebook is one of the best examples

shift keeps on happening

The latest update in the “Shift Happens” / “Did You Know…” series – version 4.0 – was released earlier this week.

Just like the previous versions, it’s full of useful data nuggets, soundbites, trivia, and statistics on the evolution of media and technology:

They’ve even produced a wiki with all their sources.

Many thanks to Tom for the pointer.

new media

The ‘media landscape’ has changed significantly in the past ten years. 

Digital, mobile, social networking… every year seems to bring its own ‘new media’.

It’s all very exciting.

However, despite their excitement, many marketers still have a very limited concept of ‘media’.

I’ve mentioned before that I believe advertising is

the process of sharing the right things with the right people in the right places at the right times.

This has significant implications for ‘media’.

On the one hand, it necessitates a more tailored approach to establishing audience connections.

The conventional model focuses on reaching an audience, but what does that matter? As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water… we need to ensure that the horse drinks as well.

This means being much more specific when it comes to identifying where and when we can engage people with what the brand wants to share.

It’s about relevance and resonance, not reach and frequency.

On the other hand, we need to be a lot more open-minded when it comes to defining ‘media’.

Why limit ourselves to the conventional choices?

There is nothing* a brand cannot use to communicate.

Our imperative is to identify the best opportunities for sharing things in the most efficient and effective manner.

To do this, we need to plan around people’s whole lives, not just around paid media and their associated ratings.

More on that here.

* Really, nothing. If you’re doubtful, give me an example of something you think couldn’t be used as ‘media’, and I’ll try to think of a way it could be used.

the symbiosis of brand and sales

Over on his adliterate blog, Richard Huntington shares some great thoughts on the perceived dichotomy of short-term and long-term objectives.

It might be an idea to read the post first in order to get some context for what follows below.

In light of some recent discussions on this theme, it appears that the issue of sales vs. brand is actually getting more complex, even though we’re allocating more resource to addressing it.

In his post, Richard raises an important concern about ‘digital segregation’:

“Online brand activity seems far more segregated into ‘like the brand’ and ‘buy from the brand’ than offline, into apps and experiences on the one hand and cheap and cheerful direct response advertising on the other. Fine if these are just tools to compliment other marketing activity, but not much of a future as a stand-alone industry.”

One of the things that attracts marketers to digital communications is the fact that they allow us to perform straightforward cause-and-effect analyses. It’s easy to prove whether specific activities drive sales, and that’s very useful. However, we seem to have become caught up in the reporting, and we’re increasingly focusing on the activities that are easiest to measure. We obsess about measurement, rather than on the outcomes the measurements should assess in the first place.

However, by not measuring the more complex, brand half of the equation, we risk returning to a commoditised approach. We’re placing greater value on linear returns, and as a consequence, each interaction is in danger of becoming a one-off transaction.

Perhaps this imbalance stems from a disproportionate emphasis on short-term results. Our focus on the present quarter means we’re losing sight of longer-term planning and the continued growth and success of the brand. There’s no denying that each quarter’s sales are critical, but to the same point, so are next quarter’s sales, and those 5 years from now.

But this is a classic case of missing the forest for the trees: we don’t need to choose one over the other.

Building brands and driving sales are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they should exist in symbiosis. They’re the yin and yang of brand success; we need to balance both in order to survive.

In that respect, any activity that prioritises one over the other is a sub-optimal compromise.

Some brands have already proven that we can achieve this balance. Ben & Jerry’s have shown that free sampling can be used to build a strong, durable brand at the same time as driving quarterly sales. Their success lies in the fact that everything they do engages people on an emotional level, rather than merely enticing them with free or cheaper product.

Of course, this strategic model requires more up-front thinking, consistency of purpose, and patience, but nothing worthwhile ever came without effort.

Critically, any brand can achieve that same balance.

I recognise that theory will not prove this point effectively, so I’d be more than happy to respond to any specific queries on how it can work for any (your) brand.

Share your challenge via the comments section below, or via twitter: @eskimon.

Many thanks to Richard for his inspiring post.

tee total

I stumbled on this great interactive piece thanks to @eunmac at Amnesia Razorfish.

The experience is similar to the Pringles banner that won awards at Cannes recently: there’s a compelling communications proposition that actively engages the audience and draws them in to an evolving story.

Even better, this campaign offers people a simple, free sample of the new Tiger Woods game, right within the advertising.

However, it was when I came to post about it that I realised there was an opportunity to make this type of campaign even more powerful.

I actually wanted to include the ‘tee-off’ banner above, instead of just the screen shot.

Maybe I’m just being slow, but I couldn’t find an easy way to do that.

Allowing people to embed the tee-off banner on their own site, or even on their Facebook profile, would amplify the reach of the campaign with no additional media cost, and even better, stimulate audience conversations.

Interactive, social media, and peer endorsement all in one; a client’s dream!

Moreover, when you ‘tee off’ in the current campaign, you visit a series of new EA pages where you play your subsequent strokes.

This was perhaps another missed opportunity; if the subsequent banners were to appear on other, non-EA sites, the brand could establish some interesting partnerships (Poke’s Balloonacy campaign for Orange demonstrated the power of this approach).

It’s already a great campaign, but I’d love to see some of these developments expand the audience engagement.

Thanks again to @eunmac

fngrz of fury

UK telco Orange have teamed up with Poke for some more digital madness.

Fngrz of Fury is a fun game that builds the brand’s personality and capitalises on Orange’s long-standing association with film.

Head over here to play.

Seen at notcot

augmented utility

I’ve been frustrated by the lack of utility in ‘augmented reality’ campaigns I’ve seen so far.

That was until Herbert shared these clips with me:

It’s great to see some applications of this technology that go beyond the novelty of a shiny new toy.

Zugara’s idea is quite simple, but it’s still very useful. As Santiago notes on this Organized Chaos post, it would be a great tool for visualising how furniture might look in the actual rooms in your house.

And while Layar’s application is just a logical progression from map mashups, it has a lot of potential; I’d be surprised if brands like Lonely Planet didn’t use it to develop mobile sightseeing apps.

It can take time for people to find the best uses for a new technology, but I’m confident we’ll see even more impressive applications of AR in the coming months – particularly in the area of virtual sampling.

Please feel free to share your own examples in the comments section.

Find out more on Zugara from this Organized Chaos post and their website, and more about Layar on their website

random mashups

Zoogami positions itself as the contemporary beer.

The brand’s website asks you to define what ‘contemporary’ means to you, and then takes a random selection of images, audio, and video from the web to create a unique experience based on what you enter.

The results are truly eclectic, and the site delivers a different experience each time, even if you enter the same thing twice.

At first, I thought this was simply another great use of technology with little connection to the brand, but thinking about it more, it actually works very well:

It demonstrates ‘contemporary’ in a fresh and differentiating way;

The experience is engaging enough that I’ve shared it with lots of different people;

And I’ll certainly try Zoogami if I ever find it.

That probably fulfills the brief.

Go take a look for yourself.

Via FWA.

urban 4 life

Adidas have launched a clever little app for the iPhone.

A guide to the street art of Berlin, it captures the brand’s personality in a clear and engaging way, and gives something tangible back to the audience in return for interacting with the message.

More details in this Springwise article and at Urban Art Guide.