viral marketing | The Responsible Marketing Blog

Archive for the ‘viral marketing’ Category

Recycling: A Love Story

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

He’s a muscle-bound, rough and tough lover of all things manly. She’s a petite girly girl that loves a nice glass of Chianti and long walks on the beach under the moonlight.

Learn how they meet, and what happens if you don’t recycle.

View on YouTube in HD

We dare you to litter in our parking lot. We double-dog-dare you.

ABOUT THE VIDEOS

This is the first of at least seven Responsible Marketing web shorts from Outsource Marketing. I say “at least” because we had so much fun doing these, we’ve already begun concept development on the next round.

As we launched our new responsible brand, we decided to crush any notions that Responsible Marketing might be boring—even prudish. Even the casual reader of this blog knows better.

While there are seven videos in this series, don’t expect them to focus solely on the Seven Keys to Responsible Marketing. Our goal wasn’t to preach responsibility.

Rather, it was to have some fun with the conflict every organization faces—that battle between commerce and conscience. Between doing the right thing or doing the other thing.

To accomplish this, we’ve put two characters you’ll know well into our everyday working environment to see how they’ll fare. Eventually we’ll cover all “Seven Keys,” but it will be subtle and not in this round.

THE RESPONSIBLE MARKETING YOUTUBE CHANNEL

The videos will be be posted weekly here on the blog and on most video sharing platforms. We’ve given special treatment to our Responsible Marketing YouTube Channel where I’ve favorited over 300 marketing videos over the last few years. Subscribe if you dig quality and/or controversial marketing vids.

While you’re there, take as moment to rate and comment on Recycling: A Love Story.

Thanks for watching, and whatever you do remember to “respect Mother Nature!”

Subscribe to this feed.

Tags: movies, outsource marketing, recycling, Recycling: A Love Story, responsible films, responsible marketing, video
Posted in announcement, environmentally responsible, fun, movies, outsource marketing news, videos, viral marketing | 1 Comment »

Are we giving PSA’s a pass?

Monday, August 31st, 2009

By now, you’ve probably seen or heard about the following PSA warning of the dangers of texting while driving produced by the Gwent Police Department in the UK.

View video on YouTube

The nearly unbearable gritty realism of a head-on collision features heads snapping back and forth on impact, gushing blood, a child crying for its dead parents and a dead infant has created controversy, and as expected—conversation.

The argument against: It’s simply too explicit.
The argument for: Desensitized youth will actually pay attention.

There’s merit to both points, but seeing this video made me wonder, “If this wasn’t a PSA—if this was an ad for child seats, OnStar or another product—what would the conversation look like?”

Are we more accepting of questionable content in PSA’s because it’s for the common good and not for profit?

Should we be?

What do you think?

Comment below to weigh in.

Subscribe to this feed.

. . .

Thanks to Deston Nokes and Martin Pierce for sharing this video with me last week.

Tags: content, message responsibility, PSA, texting, Texting While Driving PSA
Posted in message responsible, socially responsible, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth | 5 Comments »

Evian’s hip-hop roller babies: Responsible or not?

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

By now, you’ve probably heard about Evian’s new “live young” campaign featuring the roller babies.

You haven’t? Well, now you are in the know:

There’s a lot to like here: It’s fun, unique, the CGI was done well and who doesn’t love Rapper’s Delight? It’s the type of video you can hardly resist hitting the “share” button on and it’s really making the rounds.

Irresistable? Fun? Must be Responsible Marketing, right?

Well, yes and no.

Really, it depends on whether you think it’s possible for a company marketing a product many deem to be irresponsible can ever do Responsible Marketing.

Here are five reasons to not drink bottled water, from Lighter Footsteps and the Sierra Club:

Bottled water isn’t a good value
No healthier than tap water
1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year
Requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce
Creates a risk to marine life
Results in less attention to public systems

So what do you think?

Can an irresponsible product be marketed responsibly?

Comment below to weigh in.

Subscribe to this feed.

Tags: bottled water, environmentally responsible, evian, rapper's delight, responsible marketing, roller babies
Posted in advertising, creativity, environmentally responsible, responsible or not?, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth | 6 Comments »

Chocolate covered grasshoppers get people talking

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Yesterday, I received a lumpy mailer from a company I’d never heard of. Normally I give unsolicited mail about the same amount of consideration you probably do—a few seconds.

But since it was, well, lumpy, and delivered via FedEx I opened it. Here’s what I found:

On one side, it says “Yes, these are real grasshoppers. They’ve even been approved by the FDA of Thailand.”

On the other side:

You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper. They’re farm raised, covered in chocolate and rich in protein. So, not only will you be breaking boundaries, but you’ll be eating healthy, too.

The attached tag included the call to action:

Entrepreneurs can change the world.
Join the movement now!
www.grasshopper.com/idea

I really didn’t have the time, but I couldn’t resist jumping on this to learn what it was all about. The URL takes you to a page with the following video:

As it turns out, Grasshopper offers a nicely-packaged virtual PBX service for businesses. It’s a direct competitor to Grand Central, a similar service recently purchased by Google that’s locked down while Google integrates it into their systems.

Five things I loved about this campaign

The FedEx package made it feel urgent without using deceptive “Urgent – Open Immediately” language. This is message responsible.
Lumpy mail gets opened.
This is textbook example of how to do a word of mouth campaign. Chocolate covered grasshoppers? I had to share this with colleagues and with you.
A little mystery goes a long way. There was no sales copy—just a creative idea and a URL to learn more. Irresistible.
The landing page made it easy to share the video on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and and a host of other sites using an AddThis widget.

And the three things I didn’t love

Each tag was numbered, X of 5,000, and I understand after doing some research for this post that Grasshopper sent these packages to the people they deemed the 5,000 most influential people in America. Very flattering. But at first I thought I might need this code when I logged onto the website. Not so. This is not a limited edition keepsake, it’s a marketing piece. And by letting me know there were so many produced, it made me feel less special—at least initially.
The moving-text style video that was so fresh and interesting a year ago is beginning to get tired. I still like it, but it would seem every ‘movement’ has a video like this associated with it.
Which brings me to the whole ‘movement’ thing. I like to be inspired as much as the next entrepreneur, but I’m approaching my ‘movement’ saturation point. How many movements can one person truly join?

Still, Grasshopper has succeeded where most fail. In one fell swoop, they got my attention, held it, and they got me talking. And though I don’t need their service, If I did, I’d consider them.

So, what do you think of Grasshopper’s campaign?

Would you eat a chocolate covered grasshopper? (I won’t)

But if you’d like to try one, contact me and we’ll make it happen. I’ll post a video of you eating one here and you’ll be famous.

Tags: chocolate covered grasshopper, Google, GrandCentral, Grasshopper, viral marketing, word of mouth
Posted in execution responsible, launch, message responsible, social media, social networking, strategically responsible, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth | 8 Comments »

Finally, a real iPhone killer…or is it?

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Forget the Google G1 phone—the amazing Pomegranate phone is the first phone that, on the surface, looks like a real iPhone killer.

If you think the features are over the top, you’ll be shocked when you click on the “release date” button in the upper right hand corner.

So, what do you think?

Subscribe to this feed.

Thanks to my colleague, Mary Kate Baker, for reintroducing me to the Pomegranate.

Tags: G1, Google, iphone, Nova Scotia, Pomegranate, word of mouth
Posted in creativity, viral marketing, word of mouth | 5 Comments »

A Lost Generation of creatives? I think not.

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

My colleague Martin always says, “when you have a great concept, the design doesn’t have to work so hard.”

Keep that in mind when you view The Lost Generation, a video that has now been viewed nearly 5 million times on YouTube.

The design is minimal—the concept and clever copy carry the day.

The first time I viewed this, I kept thinking “No way! There’s no way they’ll be able to pull this off in reverse!” Which, of course, they did.

It’s ironic that some might use the phrase The Lost Generation when comparing ad creatives from the past with today’s talent.

That’s not a fair comparison. It’s a different time and a different place. The media has changed as have our sensibilities as a society.

I’d argue that creatives of the past weren’t better or worse. They just faced different challenges.

The fact is, great concepts are timeless, and I’d argue that the video above would hold up in any era.

Do you agree or disagree?

Subscribe to this feed.

. . .

Inspiration for this post came from Tim Berry’s Planning Startup Stories Blog.

Tags: AARP, creative, creatives, Lost Generation
Posted in creativity, simplicity, socially responsible, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth | 2 Comments »

Behold, the Facebook Friend Spamming tool

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

It was bound to happen.

With a little help from the programmers and usability gurus at Facebook, I spammed my friends, colleagues, business associates, people who’ve considered hiring Outsource Marketing, and everyone else in my Gmail address book that didn’t have a Facebook account yet.

I’m not talking about Facebook application developers making it next to impossible to use the application without inviting friends—Facebook banned that functionality last year after over a million people petitioned the social networking site to end the practice.

No, I’m talking about Facebook.

About once a month, I upload my address book using the Facebook Friend Finder tool to see if any of my friends have joined. If the address they’ve registered with is in the system, I can decide if I want to send a friend request. Facebook’s privacy policy claims they will never contact or use this information, and they’ve been known to keep their word, so I’m okay doing this.

Since Facebook is growing quickly and I know a fair share of folks, I usually find several people I’m happy to see have recently joined. I select them and click okay.

Anyone that uses Facebook knows that that’s when the trouble starts.

Here’s the next screen you’ll see:

This screen shows all of the people in your address book that don’t have a Facebook account (or at least, they don’t have an account associated with that address).

The screen is similar to the previous one—the one listing the people that do have accounts. All the boxes are pre-checked for you. And the default button is blue, just like the previous form.

I’ve always called this the “Facebook Friend Spamming Tool” because if you aren’t really careful, that’s what you’ll do—spam all your friends that aren’t on Facebook.

I’ve seen this box at least a dozen times, and I always think to myself, “Good thing I was paying attention—I’d hate to hit that.”

Call me a fat-fingered dolt. Call me a dunce. Call me what you will. But I did this today.

I’m not sure who falls for it the most often: The folks that aren’t particularly comfortable with technology or the people that are highly proficient and move from screen to screen at a lightning fast pace.

Facebook wins, you lose

Facebook has surely benefited from this functionality. A lot of people signed up for Facebook after I erroneously sent that invite. Facebook wins.

While I’m happy some of my friends have joined, I’m certain I’ve pissed some folks off. In fact, I’ve already received a message from a person that has referred my firm work that explicitly asked me not to use her address when contacting her through a third party.

You could argue I win too because I’ve reconnected with some people in my address book. That’s only partially true—we would have found each other eventually when our address books meshed in the future.

What should Facebook do?

Should they eliminate this functionality? Uncheck the boxes by default? Add a confirmation message that you indeed want to invite everyone you know to join Facebook?

What’s most responsible?

I’d appreciate your comments.

Subscribe to this feed.

Tags: Facebook, Friend Finder, social networking, spam, usability
Posted in privacy, responsible or not?, social media, social networking, usability, viral marketing | 7 Comments »

Facebook disables BK’s Whopper Sacrifice app

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Facebook “helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”

But as anyone that has used the service knows, sometimes those connections can become, well, tenuous.

Enter Burger King, who last week saw this as not a problem, but an opportunity to help Facebook users cull the unworthy using an un-friend app at WhopperSacrifice.com.

Leading with the headline “You like your friends, but you love the Whopper,” for every 10 friends you dump, Burger King provides a coupon for one of their signature burgers.

The application went viral, and in one week, 82,000 people deleted over 230,000 friendships on Facebook.

Vince Veneziani of GearFuse had this to say about the app on his blog:

It really wasn’t tough finding ten people on Facebook that I wanted to delete. I just needed a reason and a juicy burger was sufficient enough. This is one of the most twisted, yet delicious, marketing ploys I’ve ever encountered.

Yesterday, Facebook shut the application down citing privacy concerns. According to Inside Facebook, it was because the site “sent a notification to the friend being removed letting them know they were being “sacrificed for a Whopper” before finalizing the removal.”

Here’s Veneziani’s notification page after un-friending 10 of his unfortunate contacts:

Facebook claims the application still exists and will be enabled when the privacy issues are addressed, but clearly, Whopper Sacrifice won’t be nearly as controversial or interesting with the notification disabled.

What do you think?

Do you love or hate the BK app?

In trying to get attention and go viral, did Burger King go too far with the Whopper Sacrifice application, or did Facebook go too far in the name of privacy?

Comment below to share and/or friend me Facebook.

Subscribe to this feed.

Tags: Burger King, Facebook, Whopper, Whopper Sacrifice
Posted in creativity, love it or hate it?, privacy, viral marketing, word of mouth | 7 Comments »

If you can’t beat ‘em, sponsor ‘em

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

With nearly 109,650,000 views-to-date, Judson Laipply’s Evolution of Dance is the most popular video in YouTube history.

He’s back with the official sequel, Evolution of Dance 2—this time presented by Saveology.com and powered by PeopleJam.com.

I’d never heard of PeopleJam or Saveology before today. My bet is you never have, either.

Considering most viral videos attempts fail, attaching your brand to someone like Laipply is a wise move. Instead of spending big bank creating videos that aren’t funny, authentic or effective, why not seek out the people that have caught lightning and bottle and leverage their success?

What do you think?

Subscribe to this feed.

Tags: Evolution of Dance, Judson Laipply, PeopleJam, Saveology, viral video
Posted in advertainment, authenticity, creativity, social media, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth | 1 Comment »