I did a little research into ‘appvertising’ and discovered this crazy guy talking about ‘killer appvertising’ way back in January 2006, when You Tube was but a suckling infant at the breast of Mother Web.
He does use the phrase ‘advertisers need to make it as easy as urination’ which if I hadn’t just credited, I would have happily deployed at some conference I’m yet to be invited to speak at.
Herewith a shining example of all that is right with the 2 minute critique, I giveth thee wejetset another start-up in the already crowded travelosphere, bastardizing language by lumping three words together.
I discovered wejetset via a vertical banner add on Gigaom, I marvelled at it’s design simplicity, ‘christ, at least they’re putting the effort in, I’ll go click on that…’ hey presto I’m transported to a page showing a Mercedes badge, not a great start, apparently I could win one. I head straight to the ‘About’ section:
‘WEJETSET is the store and voice of modern travel culture. With its keen sense of design, comfort and utility, WEJETSET brings together the products and information that every smart traveler needs. WEJETSET is committed to carrying the highest quality products, while its print and online publications keep travelers inspired and informed. As a brand, WEJETSET is the definitive resource and cultural reference for individuals on the move.’
This picture should accompany a well researched post on the new iPod as a web browser and quick fix for those of us who can’t wait for the iPhone to come to Europe, mobile’s spiritual home! But it doesn’t… it’s Friday enjoy more Rementer:
What began as MySpace rival Tagworld became swallowed by the voracious Viacom and is now Flux the bodily fluid betwixt the sweaty bodies dancing to that Gossip track and wearing spandex at a house party in a house everyone’s got a key to.
Google Custom Search - what’s it all about? Alex Iskold over at Read Write explains it pretty succinctly:
“You can think of Google Custom Search as a filter over the main Google search engine. This is a bit of a simplification, but a good way to initially wrap your heads around the concept. By creating a filter, CSE allows its users to restrict search results to particular sites that match URL patterns or keywords.”
The blogosphere is slowly waking up to this Google release, now 9 months old - but where I believe it is of particular interest is in the digital marketing environment - the tool that enables, ‘appvertising’.
Yup, I made up a word, not so made up that you can’t get a sense of what it means, but currently if you search for ‘appvertising’ on Google you get 3 references to the Appalachian Mountain range and the wikipedia entry is mine, all mine, to bastardise as I see fit.
Appvertising: branded web application
There is a real danger I may take myself far too seriously with this whole word invention thing so feel free to look at the pictures instead, all of which bear little relation to the article.
The untapped power of appvertising is best illustrated by another of my fictional examples:
TopShop create a custom search engine for fashion, indexing the best blogs and review sites, forums, Flickr groups etc.
By letting the Google API do the heavy lifting they are creating a sticky destination site for young girls eager to view the latest fashions, nothing like looking at the latest frock, shoe or wondering at Kate Moss’s boyfriend’s sallow appearance to prompt you to do a little lite shopping online - which as we all know - is not like spending real money in real shops - it’s sort of virtual money that really comes out of your bank account, but without the guilt.
Create a slick and innovative user experience using the Ajax Search API, retain an editorial team to add new sites to the index and maintain the existing ones and you’ve got a totally unique branded proposition.
The happy interactive marriage of Google and Pete Doherty, ah, only in my nightmares…
I love simple creative, the kinda idea you wish you had come up with. Well Juan Pablo Gaete Art Director, Publicis Chile got there first:
Cannes Lion Gold winner in the Young Creatives category, Right To Play is an international humanitarian organisation committed to improving the lives of children in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. It uses specially-designed sport and play programmes to promote development, peace and health.
“The aim of the brief was to create awareness, educate and inform the public about the charity Right To Play and their work in using sport for peace worldwide.”
Extraordinarily powerful image that perfectly captures the spirit of the campaign.
p2p content distribution is a much maligned and much misunderstood medium. Hollywood bemoans the loss of billions of $ annually to file sharers, lawsuits fly about, the little guy gets taken down and 10 more replace him.
Rather than work against the community, content owners would do well to embrace it and understand it. The most popular rips on bittorrent are often blockbuster action flicks and comedy, the same target audience you’re trying to fill your multiplexes with. With an estimated audience of 80 million file sharers worldwide you’ve got to view this as an opportunity. What if the same day the film is released, a legitimate copy is released using bittorrent? except this pristine, non dv-cam in the cinema version features an ad or three, maybe some extras - the ads could be targeted to the region. Once you’ve done that, the bootleggers don’t offer any unique value with their cheap copies, you wipe out the blackmarket. Sure this approach won’t work for porn because no brand wants to be associated with porn and what looks better, a scared 16 year kid who has been caught downloading the latest Harry Potter getting labeled a thief? or porn barons losing money? Go figure.
Will those people who download it cut into the multiplex profits? No, they wouldn’t have gone anyway, or maybe they might be inclined to go now and see the big screen spectacle - I’m thinking here of the Bourne Ultimatum, I’ve watched it ripped and in the cinema and there’s no comparison, it warrants being seen on the big screen.
Secondly you get legitimate mavens, people going around telling others about how good Bourne Penultimatum is, word spreads, buzz spreads, the multiplexes fill out, more vulcanized cheese tacos get sold…
Is anyone doing this? No, a flat no, it’s too risky, it involves too many laywers, it’s… an excuse - most marketeers aren’t even aware the opportunity exists, and the only people offering such a service are the same people who target the file sharers on behalf of the copyright holders and as such are loathed by the community.
For 5 years, whilst Creative Manager of PFD, I was responsible to researching technologies effect upon the existent entertainment industry and investigating ways it might adapt and lead and so I realise suggesting a studio use the very channels it’s seeking to shut down as a new means of distribution is going to take some getting used to. But they better wake up to the possibilities because bittorrent isn’t going away and so called Generation Y have only ever known the internet and mobile technology and are deaf to the protestations of the copyright holders. p2p distribution represents the single biggest opportunity to film makers to find and monetise a captive audience. You can’t simply herd people into the multiplexes or down to the dvd store by shutting of all other means of access - it’s an impossible and as we are increasingly seeing, thankless task.
You Tube has revolutionized viral marketing, it’s revolutionized marketing period and yet we see very few established marketeers venturing into this realm - sure I should be talking about that chocolate advert that’s gone all ‘superviral’ but that’s got a £6.4m ad spend and an actor who specializes in playing simians.
The key component in all these is humour and/or horror, the Jackass effect. Boardroom’s full of execs and creatives do not make for innovative virals, by their very nature those that seem too ‘contrived’, too ‘market spun’ die a lonely death online - sure entertain us, but don’t give us the star spangled brand crapola all over it. Back to the chocolate monkey - the viral that has nothing to do with chocolate and everything to do with entertaining - the winning formula is brand retention, I don’t even think about what a man in a monkey suit playing drums says about a Dairy Milk, I don’t care, I care about the sociability of the viral, I want to talk about it, it compels me.
You Tube has also revolutionized the marketing creative budget and I’d argue that savvy marketeers and digital agencies should be offering new business models to brands who are keen to innovate. How about you hire an agency to create a viral, or to find viral content, there’s a lot of it out there - they re-purpose it with your brand, something funny, something subtle a post-roll saying ‘brought you by…’ or better something funny to link the brand and viral content, show a little self-deprecation, show that you can laugh at yourself.
Seed it on every video sharing site you can, let it go. If it gets the views, the agency gets paid, use the Google Adsense model, the better the creative, the better the reward, let the agency adsorb the budget cost - it would certainly focus their creative energies.
The agency’s job is less about Fiji water and flipcharts and more about finding content already seeded on You Tube, getting in touch with the owner, re-purposing it with brand sponsorship and putting it back out there - discovering the right content is the skill and an agency demonstrating it’s creative mettle by being agile, able to adapt, monitor and react.
The big marketing agencies have an economic need to maintain traditional client/agency working models - but that doesn’t stop younger, more agile players offering a new way of doing things. We’ve never had so many content creators, so many disruptors and creatives - we should use them - channel their collective creativity to all parties mutual financial benefit.
Take this video, Leave Britney Alone, a the time of writing it’s been viewed 1,467, 794 and it was posted 1 day ago - I use it as an example because I’ve been sent the link 3 times this morning and don’t think I’ve ever mentioned a regard for Ms. Spears, beige bedsheets or hair dye to any of my friends. Why send me it? It’s weird, it’s topical, it’s counter to mainstream press, it’s Sub-Jackass. It’s viral.
Re-wind 1 day, we’ve been approached by a brand who sell hair clippers, they want to reach out to the web demographic, they want something viral, ‘like that Coke and Mentos stuff’. We find this video, it’s been watched 100 times, but it’s rocketing in popularity, we contact ‘itschriscrocker’ we ask him if we can add a little graphic at the end of the video saying, ‘ bald is beautiful’ with a link to X Brand hair clipper’s homesite, or better a link to Amazon and the X Brand page with consumer reviews. The new video replaces the old one, within a day 1.5 million people have seen it. The agency and Chris get paid per view based on an agreed per view rate with X brand hair clippers.
The brand only pays for reach and the whole campaign from inception to execution to measurable success has taken 1 day.
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