Capital C

Marketing Newspeak- Pt. II

As promised, we present Pt. II of Marketing Newspeak- concepts that are currently rocking our world. See Pt. I here.

1. Black Triangles:Accomplishments that take a lot of effort to achieve, but yield little meat. However, they provide the breakthrough for future work to proceed- black triangles are a validation of one's framework and help shine light on the path to the eventual success.

2. Habitability:  The characteristic of source code that enables programmers coming to the code later in its life to understand its construction and intentions and to change it comfortably and confidently”. Applying this principle to brand-building will make it easier for consumers to put their souls into the brand identity.

3. Cyberbalkanization: The idea that the more time we spend online (and the richer our online interactions become), the pickier we become. Our tastes become more particular and our online social circles get more fragmented. Mass marketing becomes impotent.

 
4. Google Juice: "GoogleJuice is the ethereal substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks. It's used to describe one's (or company/product) connectedness and visibility on Google.

5. Homo Mimicus: "Many animals mimic each other's behaviour but we do it more often and with greater fidelity. Our compulsive copying encodes collective knowledge into our society, and it is really our society that possesses humanity's 'intelligence' " We should grasp this aspect of behavior when building communities.

-Jason Dojc & Hiten

Digital Digs

For weekly digestible digi-tidbits, check out our 'Cap C's Digital Digs' category in the left column.

Digital Digs- 07-24-09

Capital C’s Digital Digs – A digest of what's new and emerging in marketing, technology and strategy.

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Why Go Online?
Want to know why a particular demographic group goes online and what they mean by “be entertained” or “connect” or “do business”? RuderFinn put together a nifty tool to help you.
 
Learn, Shop, Have Fun, etc <http://www.ruderfinn.com/rfrelate/intent/intent-index.html>

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Letterman Discovers Twitter
David Letterman was introduced to Twitter via Kevin Spacey <http://twitter.com/kevinSpacey>  on last night's Late Show. Once Dave got past the concept of typing with his thumbs he was able to characterize Twitter as "a waste of time."
 
How Much does it Cost to Twitter? <http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/letterman-discovers-twitter-via-spacey.html>

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Augmented ID
You’re at a conference and you see someone interesting. You point your mobile phone at the person and icons appear around that person highlighting their social media identities so you can check them out before talking to them.
 
Hi, This is Me <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb0pMeg1UN0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgregverdino.typepad.com%2Fgreg_verdinos_blog%2F2009%2F07%2Fmobile-in-the-middle.html&feature=player_embedded >

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Twitterville Introduction
Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations with Joseph Jaffe, is releasing a new book called “Twitterville” on September 3. His publisher has allowed the introduction to be posted online.
 
Twitterville: The New Global Neighbourhood <http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/twitterville-excerpt-introduction.html>
 
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Movie Studios Try to Harness "Twitter Effect"
This is the story of the so-called "Twitter effect," whereby people who saw Bruno on its opening Friday tweeted their displeasure to friends in time to put the kibosh on Saturday ticket purchases. There's some merit to this theory, because Brüno's box office fell off a cliff from opening day to its second day.
 
Words Can Kill <http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE56G74H20090717>
 
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YouTube Insight: Share Detailed Stats for Your Videos
Simply being able to turn the switch for video insights from “private” to “public” may not seem like a big deal to most people. But insights are quickly becoming a vital tool as more and more viable information is found through social networks like YouTube. Journalist, strategists, and analysts: take heed.
 
Love Those Insights <http://mashable.com/2009/07/23/youtube-insight/>
 
 
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We want your feedback. Send links, criticism & love to:
digital.digs@capitalc.ca
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Ontario- 'Yours to Create'

Just finished the Martin Prosperity Institute's report, ‘Ontario in the Creative Age’ .Yes. This is what we need, hard facts that tell us where we are and visionary research that will guide us to where we need to be. Over the next decade, Ontario is well-placed to be a creative powerhouse  due to our solid creative base, our tolerance, and our diversity. However, we need focus and re-prioritizing.

Key nuggets:(*Images taken from 'Ontario in the Creative Age' - Martin Prosperity Institute)

 Brawn is Weak: Ontario's relative under-valuation of social & analytical skills doesn't bode well for both its earning potential and creative karma.

 

Remedy: Emphasize creative skills through educational reform and job restructuring.

 Clusters are creative catalysts: Wages are 28% higher in ‘clustered industries’ than in dispersed industries (this gap is even more striking in the US)

To increase clustering and thus take advantages of the 'economies of spike', we need to invest in connectivity (transportation); this will "speed up the movement of people, goods and ideas" Ontario should also become a mecca for top international talent. Our integrative and tolerant social system will be the key to making this happen.

Martin's long-term vision for Ontario is one worth sharing:

1. Ontario becomes becomes the first province in which creativity-oriented occupations account for 50% of all jobs.

2. Increase creativity in all jobs, through autonomy and continual learning

3. Creativity becomes a core tenet of education (a la Sir Ken)

4. Ontario marketed as the 'creative province'

Let's bounce off each other and work to make this happen.Would love your thoughts.

The Enchanted Object

 David Rose, serial entrepreneur and instructor at MIT’s Media Lab, recently rapped with Seed about his professional raison d’être, the notion of the ‘enchanted object’. 
“The functionality of computation and the representation of information and communication will be embedded in many everyday objects. They will seem to be a little bit magical—delightfully easy to use and adding value to our lives a little bit at a time.”
Case in point- Frodo’s LOTR sword, which glows blue when orcs are nearby. Rose was inspired by this to create the Ambient Umbrella.

I'm floored by the idea of utility as bewitchment.

The Cupboard under the Stairs

Human-product interaction is becoming increasingly effortless. Features are spelled out, instruction booklets a plethora of parchment. This is doubleplusgood for fields such as healthcare, wherein the goal is to get the job done and minimize harm. However, with experience-centric brands, it’s best to leave some realms open for discovery. Introduce a sense of playfulness, a little mystery.

JJ Abrams says it best: “Mystery is the catalyst for imagination. Now more than ever, it has special meaning. Because it's the anomaly, the glaring affirmation that the Age of Immediacy has a meaningful downside. Mystery demands that you stop and consider—or, at the very least, slow down and discover. It's a challenge to get there yourself, on its terms, not yours.”
Mystery is why campaigns such as Why So Serious? and Year Zero were such a sensation; they titillated, invited consumers in to be puzzle-solvers, crytographers, discoverers. The gauntlet was thrown, and we couldn’t get enough.
Keep those cupboards messy.

Digital Digs- 07.17.09

Capital C’s Digital Digs – A digest of what's new and emerging in marketing, technology and strategy.

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How to Evaluate Social Media Street Cred
Best Buy put out a want ad for a Director of Emerging Media and they list having 250 followers as a requirement. David Armano adds more dimensions to round out better candidates. Okay, but what about old fashion things like communication skills, business acumen, etc?
 
To Be a Social Media Professional <http://blog.futurelab.net/2009/07/how_to_evaluate_social_media_s.html>

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What the F**k is Social Media: One Year Later
Marta Kagan updates last year’s rant with more panache and profanity. Social media is not just a another marketing channel. It’s PR, customer service, loyalty building, collaboration, networking, and customer acquisition
 
WTF, Social Media <http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later>

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Absolut-ly (Sort of) Useful
Insurance agent calendars and beer-sponsored bar coasters or bottle openers, have achieved a sort of sponsorship Zen. We may find them ugly, but they’re certainly useful (and free). Branded iPhone apps have been searching for that same balance of being super-useful without an overt ‘shouting message’. Absolut’s Drinkspiration may have reached it. Cheers!
 
Get Lush-fully Inspired <http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=109327>
 
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The Social Media Game
Want to put on a social media workshop? Beth Kanter and David Wilcox created one that works well in a workshop-like setting. Monica Hamburg tried it out and posted the opening deck that explains all the social media tools just before you send everyone off to a breakout session.
 
Let's Play <http://monicahamburg.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/social-media-game-for-my-charity-connects/>
 
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The Inside Numbers on Twitter
Are Twitter’s alleged internal numbers overly optimistic—or do the people inside Twitter know something the rest of us don’t? There’s lots of opposing views, that’s for certain.
 
Get the Inside Scoop <http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007185>
 
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Toyota Targets iPhone Users With New Prius Promotion
With more than 60 percent of Toyota Motor’s WAP traffic coming from the iPhone, the automaker decided to take a different approach to mobile with the promotion of the newest Prius car model.

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We want your feedback. Send links, criticism & love to:
digital.digs@capitalc.ca
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Rypple rocks in real-time

Christa Avampato, a product development manager in NYC, formerly worked as a company manager for Broadway shows and national tours. Her insights into running a theatre production stress the value of dynamic feedback.
In her own words, “theatre involves a hefty amount of collaboration and improvisation. Something is always going haywire in the world of live entertainment, and keeping the train on the tracks requires some fancy manoeuvring.”
When Christa moved into the corporate world, she was taken aback by the lack of dynamic feedback systems. Annual reviews were often irrelevant and did not result in major behavioural changes. Christa remarked that, in theatre, “if I waited 6 months to find out how I was doing in my job, the show would go belly-up in no time. The show and the individual performance of each member of the company are reviewed at every waking moment, and then some. As it should be. Feedback, good, bad, and indifferent, is the basis of our entire professional existence.”
At Cap C, we’re believers in the efficacy of real-time systems. This is why we’ve partnered with Fresh Intelligence – we want to know what consumers are thinking, right now. We’re excited about Rypple for similar reasons. It’s a platform for receiving real-time, honest and anonymous feedback from trusted advisers and co-workers. Users will be able to draft the questions most relevant to their professional development and can decide what to do with the feedback they receive. Definitely worth a gander.

Marketing's mirror box

A mirror box is a box with two mirrors in the center, invented by V.S. Ramachandran to help alleviate 'phantom limb' pain. He believed that this pain arises as a result of ‘learned paralysis’. Pre-amputation, the brain issued motor commands to the paralyzed limb, but received sensory feedback to the contrary. This feedback was etched onto the brain circuitry and persisted even after the limb was amputated.
The mirror box re-trains the brain. The patient sees the reflected image of the good hand moving,  and it appears as if the phantom limb is also moving. Through the use of this artificial visual feedback it becomes possible for the patient to "move" the phantom limb, and thus break out of learned paralysis.

Will social media become marketing’s mirror box? Are consumers going to use it to reclaim concepts long-stolen from them, to smash the core connotations that brands spent millions on hard-wiring? When consumers see their purchase decisions dissected all over the web; will the phantom of 'brand loyalty' be overthrown?

-Hiten

Marketing Newspeak- Pt. I

A few of the concepts running through our heads, informing and challenging us. More to come.

1. Combinatorial explosion:
If problem solving is a search through an abstract state, then there are numerous operators that can be performed to transform your initial state into a goal state. But due to the vast search space for most real-world problems, the possible number of operators approaches infinity, and an algorithmic approach to problem-solving would lead to combinatorial explosion.
We need to develop heuristics that ‘bound’ our rationality by addressing issues of relevance and resource management. In an age of increasing complexity, refining process will pay off lavishly.

2. Contextual interruption: In your search for something specific, you might stumble upon something else that’s related in the ‘appropriate context’. So although you fancy a Caribbean retreat, when you visit your favourite travel site you might end up booking a Mediterranean vacation, as it satisfies your main criteria of sun, surf and visual treats. 

3. Synthetic Authenticity
The ‘virtualization’ of life has led to a deep concern for the ‘authentic’."What [consumers] buy must reflect who they are and who they aspire to be in relation to how they perceive the world—with lightning-quick judgments of 'real' or 'fake' hanging in the balance.

4. Recombinant Branding
People are heavily primed to pass on their own ideas, and hence giving them ownership of brand ideas makes them more likely to spread. This is more than asking for consumer input through every stage of design; we need to give them permission to distort, remix and re-conceptualize our ideas. Our job is to create a playground for the consumer/producer, and trust them to weave richer context and meaning into our brand.

5. Urban Dance
The ‘urban trance’ is a self-protection mechanism that has evolved out of continual information bombardment. Consumers are conditioned to ignore traditional marketing messages- they simply ‘zone out’. The solution to the urban trance is the urban dance, something that involves the consumer, shares a moment with them, synchronizes with their day and gives them joy.

-Jason Dojc & Hiten