March 28, 2008
This is an excerpt of a piece about the use of social networking by marketers, written by StrawberryFrog. Pass it on.
Social marketing DON’TS
1) Don’t violate the rules of social media. Often marketers and brands violating basic rules of social media. For Facebook no matter how targeted the message (or fancy or clever), it was still going to cause a revolt because Facebook wasn’t meant as a platform for marketing – it had a 100% social purpose. Brands and advertisers constantly forget this in their desperation to chase “consumers” down every dark alley and try and corner them into submission. With Scion, we ensured that we developed this site in collaboration with the Scion enthusiast audience. In fact, we used some of the leaders of the existing online Scion communities to help us to develop the Scion design language. We also ensured that this brand site was designed for purely social and expressive purposes and did not feel like a corporate or money generating venture.
2) Don’t duplicate established social communities. If your audience is using a strongly established community (i.e. recipe sharing), why re-create a duplicate, marketing based branded version of the same community? Why would your target leave the existing community for a branded version of the same offer? There are hundreds of existing Scion communities and socializing sites online. We knew from the start that we had to create a totally new kind of social tool for Scion owners to be a relevant and frequently used social tool.
3) Don’t hijack consumer’s social networks. One of the failures of Facebook marketing was that it hijacked the existing culture of the community. At the least marketers should be invited into the social culture, but even better marketers should create its own culture that consumers want to join. They should also be mindful of forcing friends to endorse products among their peers. Users should be voluntary brand ambassadors, not an enforced sales force.
March 20, 2008
When you’re creating meaningful communications for a brand, you spend a lot of time studying the target audience. It’s one of the very best parts of the job — the psychology of what makes people choose one product over another is a rich chunk of cultural anthropology. Anybody with a computer can build an ad, god help us. But connecting with consumers is a craft. For an over-the-top look at how one creative free spirit gets inside the heads of shoppers, check out a la Cart. Performance artist and author Carlip collects strangers’ lost shopping lists, and imagines the life of the people behind them. a la Cart is a compilation of Carlip’s photographic interpretations of those people — with the help of expertly applied make-up and costuming, she turns herself into them. More creatively insightful than Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.
March 17, 2008
Considering that the average click-through rate for web banner ads is 2.1%, it’s amazing anybody still invests money into them. Word-of-mouth and SEO are two great alternatives for the stale medium of banner ads. And why not use the internet in more strategic ways? Why BUY the media, when you can CREATE it? Take Johnson and Johnson’s BabyCenter — a site that would give any parenting magazine a run for its money. And then there’s Nike Plus, of course, which is a real threat to any media engaging the running population. It’s simply the difference in leaders and followers, I suspect.
March 14, 2008
Turtle Island Foods, home of Tofurky, has become the first food company to sponsor the Humane Society of the United States. Seems like a good move– a nice, high-profile statement of integrity. With the recent surfacing of disturbing undercover videos from the meat industry, it seems that Tofurky could be poised for the limelight. Sure, Tofurky is an acquired taste, and proves to be tough to sneak past people accustomed to the traditional carcass/dead animal products. But tasting weird hasn’t stopped many products from hitting the big-time. (Yes, Red Bull, we’re talking about you.) We hope Tofurky seizes the day and grabs some market share. Of course, they’ll have to step over some diseased cows, on their way into the mainstream food supply.
March 7, 2008
Skirt! magazine profiled Tattoo’s Buffy in their “She’s the Boss” issue this month. Skirt! is a monthly magazine distributed in Charleston, SC; Atlanta, GA; Augusta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Savannah, GA; Jacksonville, FL.; Columbia, SC; Knoxville, TN; Memphis, TN; Richmond, VA; Houston, TX; and Boston, MA. Check it out here. Most interestingly, it wasn’t any of the work we do for our clients that got their attention– it was our crazy singing. Go figure.
March 6, 2008
Just finished shooting a top secret project– to be revealed in April. If you want to try to guess the client, here are some hints: a dirt track, champagne, and hard hats were involved in the shoot. 
March 4, 2008
We’ve all been there: shoes off, laptop removed from bag, belt buckle removed, Ziploc filled with 3.4 oz containers ready to roll on through. But the people in front of you have never heard about the Ziploc bag rule, the woman is in tears about throwing away her full bottle of Sunsilk, the guy sets off the alarm with his car keys in his jacket pocket for the 6th time, and what? They have to take their shoes off? Why?
In an effort to stop the madness, the TSA is now testing a new system in select markets. For the first time, flyers are self-selecting their security lane based on three color-coded security choices: green for beginners and families, blue for intermediates, and black for experts such as business travellers.
The “Black Diamond” lane has got to be a fun one to watch, like a well-oiled machine. First the advertising bins, now this. TSA rocks.
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