scott goodson's writings

GOOGLE AND VIRGIN ARE WRONG TO OFFER 'MOON ADS'

Several sources have written today that Google will extend their Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising inventory to include the Moon.

As far as I've been able to gather, in early 2010 brand managers will be able to include the celestial satellite in their media plan along with mall displays, billboards, website banners and text ads.

More background
Google is working on a deal with Virgin Galactic to install a projection system that will consist of tethered satellite units with a tiny compulsion systems to maintain position. A banner, approximately the size of four football field, stretched between the units made of polyhedron plasma foils will create a giant projection lenses. Electronic frequencies sent to millions of cells will adjust color and opacity to create the equivalent of a slide show projection on the Moon’s surface. The display area will be visible to anyone, most viewers will be able to see large objects displayed but additional information like text, URL’s and smaller graphics will be visible with the use of binoculars or telescopes. The moon inventory will be available based on regions; splitting North America into zones plus global regions including several Asia Pacific regions, Europe and the Middle East. ”Because there is no intention to build permanent structures on the moon is arguable if there’s any legal reason this can’t be done” Says Dr. Rudolf Hoffman, Director of Space Policy at The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), “There hasn’t been commercial enterprises like this before, it sets a precedent.” Hoffman noted, “This will be a critical topic at the next session.” The next session of the Legal Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will be held from March 31st to April 11th 2008 at the United Nation Office at Vienna, Vienna International Center, Vienna, Austria.

I have to say I think this is gross. The last thing I need to see is a logo on the moon. This has got to be either a hoax or the stupidest marketing idea I've ever heard.

(April fools!)

SPARKING "CULTURAL MOVEMENTS" - THE STRAWBERRYFROG WAY

Advertising and communications agencies need new processes to liberate their creativity for our changed media world. Of course the big traditional ad holding companies will disagree with me here, but the reality is new processes are critical to address the new world order.

When more and more Americans are doing 'ROBO' (research online/buy offline) before they buy cars and trips, but also toothpaste and food, advertisers shouldn't accept expensive TV commercials, (like the absurd 2-minute kind that costs millions of dollars to produce and millions more to run on TV), as the all-important drop that comes out of the heavy water factory. A change of thinking is needed.

If you don’t change anything when running a marketing company today you will fail. If you change everything you will fail. The advertising world is in constant flux and transition. It's affected by technology. It's affected by the rise of remarkably innovative new marketing cultures such as India and Brazil. And it's affected by the evolution of what we know to be a brand experience. So change is needed. Where do we start?

I have always respected the brief.

I have always believed that the brief is the most important tool in the creation of brilliant and effective communications. If you do a smart brief you will do a great campaign. A bad brief will make or break the campaign. The only way to make money running an advertising agency today is to have smart briefs. I have always been very respectful of the 'advertising brief' the first key tool invented to ensure that the creative resources - the talent of an agency are working efficiently or irrelevantly. When I say creative talent I don't mean it in the traditional agency way, creativity is NOT the domain of only the creative department.

So let's start at the brief.

This was the starting point for StrawberryFrog when we set out to develop our own brief - a new strategic process if you will - to deliver strategic and creative excellence and innovation. The process that we invented at StrawberryFrog is called "Cultural Movements."

StrawberryFrog sparks "Cultural Movements" for brands. It's a mixture of a popular grass roots movement and the science of marketing. It is a simple 3-step process Ready, Set, Leap. It's our process to liberate creativity.

It's the same strategic approach that was implemented by Obama to generate "Obama heat" and lust after him as a candidate. Powerful no?

"Cultural Movements" was invented by StrawberyFrog to maximize investments in marketing in light of all the changes happening around us, such as the fragmented media world, the radical decline of the 30 second TV spot, and the rise of the truly interactive class. And especially in light of brands in transition. When the strategic leaders of StrawberryFrog developed this process, we spent a lot of time thinking about what should be changed and not changed. What was working and what was not.

We believed the following to be true:
- Creativity is the number one resource which will continue to increase in value.
- Execution will decrease in value
- Relevance is more important than awareness (awareness will always rise if you first have relevance).
- Traditional agency strategic processes are flawed because they start with the product then move to the brand and then consumer psychographic and then use a lot of money to break through people's walls of indifference. To "disrupt" their lives so to speak.

We believed after our research that there was a better, smarter, more efficient and more effective way. Cultural Movements was the result.

Cultural Movements starts in the real world. It's an "outside in" approach vs an "inside out" strategic approach.

Cultural Movements starts with a social science study and ethnographic interviews to find an idea on the rise in culture that can define the brand. The reason this is so effective is because it is true. It is not made up or fantasy or advertising - which people increasingly feel to be spam no matter how entertaining it may be. The idea on the rise in culture is then connected back to the culture of the brand - a cultural connection.

The next step is to build communities on and offline among like-minded individuals who populate social networks specifically because the idea on the rise is so relevant to them. Call them brand fans.

Once you have populations of card carrying passionate members, you use mass communications to spread the word to a wider audience. I love brilliant emotional TV spots. I just don't believe you need to make one of those right off the brief to establish a Cultural Movement in a mass market. Without the ground work and the communities of like-minded brand fans, you build through Cultural Movements, you will get a lot of shrugs and so whats from consumers when you show them another big budget TV spot, unless it's truly relevant to them.

Cultural Movements is our way to come up with innovative strategies, it’s the StrawberryFrog's competitive edge, our Frog DNA, it sets the course for all the Frogs and our clients to follow.

If you have a Cultural Movement you can do so many many things. If you have just an ad or a website, you don’t know what to do in all the different channels. But if you first start with the development of a Cultural Movement, you will be able to maximize all disciplines. And in today's world, you can really do anything, once you have established the Cultural Movement. You can manage all the different innovations, segments, channels, disciplines and in the end of the day you are building a highly relevant brand based on that idea on the rise in culture.

DESIGN ALLTOP IS 'THE' DESIGN SITE

Design Alltop has got design covered as they say. It's a one stop shop for all intellectual sites, blogs, thinking going on in the design space. You can peruse between cool hunting to wallpaper to better living through design to dwell daily blog to outblush to design' sponge to subtraction to valleyzen.com to uncoolhunting to fresh vintage...you get the pitcure.

This is anther good example of the direction the communications business is headed. Design Alltop's Intrinsic and extrinsic properties are editing and order of information vs the creation of content.

I'M IN GOA

The flight down to Goa from Mumbai was lovely. Indian-owned Jet Airlines is a remarkable up-and-coming airline that will teach the old AA+Delta+United+Continental gang a thing or two.

A 50-minute ride from Goa airport brings you to the southern a coastal village and just outside past the pottery house is Leela, an incredible Jewel on the from another era. The Indian advertising association has graciously put me up in this wonderful and inspiring gem of a hotel. It's an old group of buildings, rusty red and maroon-painted stone buildings, that are immaculately refurbished with dark teak wood furniture designed by an Indian furniture maker from Goa.

I am preparing my speech about a very remarkable creature that lives in this age - StrawberryFrog - for what will be a crowd of 3000 participants at Goafest 2008. I'm kinda speechless in that this is the biggest group I have ever spoken to. I'm honored to have been asked to keynote this year. And I am very much looking forward to meeting a number of new and old friends (from Cannes) down here over the course of the next few days.

Here are some quick images from my trip so far. Most come from Mumbai but the ones at the bottom are from my arrival today here at the Leela.

SAVING THE LIVES OF LITTLE GIRLS AND MY LAST DAY IN MUMBAI

So I'm heading to the airport after an incredible week here in Mumbai. The people at Mahindra were really amazing. I look forward to seeing them again soon. It's going to be quite a year ahead of us as StrawberryFrog prepares to help launch India's first premium brand into the USA, in this case a portfolio of amazing new automobiles.

One thing I want to leave everyone with is the Mahindra Foundation's incredible work in funding Nanhi Kali, the organization whose mission it is progress the lives of Indian girl children, to keep them in school, and fight against the age old practice of marrying off girls as young as 10. This social initiative is incredibly inspiring to me personally. For $65 you can sponsor a girl for one year to help pay her living costs so that she can attend school. You get a photo of the girl and a report card from school. I'm sponsoring 5.

Sponsoring one girl costs less than a year's subscription to the Economist. And you get a tax deduction in the USA through their US foundation to boot.

American residents click here to make a donation.

Please also join the Facebook group here.

Here is how Nanhi Kali describes their mission:

In many parts of India, the arrival of a baby girl calls for mourning rather than celebration. Abandoning them at birth or marrying them off as children is a common practice. Looked upon as huge economic burdens, it is hardly surprising that many Indian families don't see the point in investing in their education.

Government of India statistics reveal that only three out of ten girls who enter Std. I complete Std. X. While enrolment rates of girls are improving marginally in India, dropout levels remain alarmingly high. At primary school level, over 45% of girls dropout of school and this increases to over 73% by the time the child has reached Std. X. Research has shown that reasons for this dropout may be as minor as the girl child not being able to afford a dress/uniform to go to school and could include more complex factors like girls taking on the responsibility of household chores at a very young age as a result of gender stereotyping.

Successful education of the girl child has been repeatedly acknowledged as an effective mechanism to break this inter generational cycle of poverty, myths, social norms and social evils. Research conducted in developing countries has shown that a literate female population is linked to reduction in population growth rates. On the other hand illiteracy, breeds ignorance and fear and only increases her vulnerability to be exposed to lifelong abuse and exploitation.

In many parts of the developing world the rights and lives of girls are going backwards not forwards, here is one of those very rare positive stories where ground has been taken, but risks being lost without donations and support, and awareness. For a society that has many challenges this is a truly great story and one that I am sure you will want to pass on to your friends on the blogosphere.

Please pass this on throughout the social media and blogosphere.

See the Nanhi Kali site here:

HOW TO MEASURE SOCIAL MEDIA

Making a Splash with Social Media Measurement

Measurement is a really tough issue for social media proponents. Every business needs to measure results. But social media is different than say, PR clip counts. It's not the placements, it's the conversations. And some conversations are obviously more valuable than others.

Watch this video - it's the best example of a social media promotion and how to measure it.

THOUGHTS ON COMMUNICATIONS PRODUCTS

Remember back two years ago when we used to talk a lot about Youtube and online video. Back then in my blogs, and many other blogs, it was common to embed a lot of video. This was a very good example of a communications tool that made using video online really simple.

YouTube was sold to Google, but the lesson for me was how new digital tools - such as Youtube - could create separate companies that were worth a lot of money. And also generate a ton of traffic.

I mention all of this because I read my friend Brian Morrissey's post this morning about a new British agency called Analog Folk focusing on building 'Communications Products.'

As the ad industry scrambles to build the next Nike+, a new agency sees a chance to specialize in building long-lasting brand platforms -- and take a piece of the action. A half-dozen executives...have joined forced to launch AnalogFolk, a shop that is dedicated to what it is calling "communications products" that meld digital technology with real-world interaction. Unlike regular bits of ad messaging, a communications product is sought out by consumers, even bought, the shop believes. "We need to be thinking of communications as a product rather than something that has finite value that decreases over time," said Matt Dyke, a founding partner and head of planning at DDB London. "You do a Super Bowl ad, then it loses value and eventually peters out."

I think this is an interesting venture considering that hundreds of new online video companies have launched with thousands of programs, business models, tools and services. The result…it has never been cheaper to make communications tools, communications products, widgets, etc BUT, never been harder to get attention.

I suppose the challenge for an agency that is dedicated to developing communications products is twofold. 1. Help companies develop these products. 2. Market these products.

Both seem to be solid forms of revenue generation.

What's interesting to me is not so much a focus on 'communication products' but the activation of long-standing and inactive consumer data-bases. The one thing that really makes sense today is to develop communications tools that enable you to activate millions of names and emails on thousands of databases that remain in-active and gathering dust.

This is where technology firms + creative thinkers + marketers + advertisers will come together to form new business partnerships and new revenue streams. At StrawberryFrog we are in partnership with about a dozen very respected global brands to do just that. It's very much the wild west out there.

The reality is that no one firm has all or any of the experience to pull this off alone. The businesses that will be able to provide the best solutions for clients are those who have a broad network of specialist firms. But more, companies that have an open-source culture that encourage the gathering together of dynamic individuals and small firms to create communications tools, communications products, service-tainment concepts that really work over time and don't just suck money.

In this mix will be people rarely if ever seen in traditional communications firms - business building specialists who know how to write business plans that will lead to new forms of revenue generation for advertisers and not create simply a cool sink hole for wasted marketing dollars.

Why is this important? Because if you are a client that is thinking of getting into the communications products business, you could do a lot worse than to study the fast growing internet brands like Etsy, Yelp.com, Zillow.com - that have attracted and activated users - and are helping them build more community and brand loyalty through a web show. That makes sense, but how do you do it still needs to be worked out. Communications products are fascinating, but continue to be a very difficult place to be as an advertiser, let alone an entrepreneur.

I'll let you know how our R&D work proceeds with our clients and with the consortium of dynamic partners we have brought together to build these new communications products/tools/service-tainments into viable businesses.

I'M GOING TO SPEAK AT THE WAVE FESTIVAL IN RIO

I have been asked to join the main panel debate in Rio at this year's 2008 Latin American WAVE FESTIVAL, the premier marketing and communications event south of the Rio Grande.

I have been asked to speak on a panel with Dan Widen, the founder of Widen and Kennedy and also Nizan Guanaes the legendary Brazilian marketing and businessman, and founder of DM9, Africa and Hello Interactive. It will be an honor for me to attend.

I have been asked to speak about The IDEA and all the necessary ingredients to make up an incredible agency these days...the importance of being strategic, of understanding the business of the client and how innovation impacts the client's future growth potential.

The event will take place at the Hotel Copacabana Palce, from the 19th to the 21st of May. You can find out more about this incredible festival here.

MADE IN BRASIL

The largest country in South America and only slightly smaller than the United States, Brazil is a fascinating, colorful, cosmopolitan mix of style, culture, music, food, and more – all captured in the pages of Made in Brazil, a site that’s sent to us right from the heart of the Southern Hemisphere. The site “collaborates with the media…to provide up to date news about the latest trends in the country”. With its colorful posts, pictures, and videos, the site all but has you hearing the samba music and smelling the suntan lotion on Copacabana beach. You can taste, see, hear, and experience everything Rio de Janeiro and the rest of the country has to offer (and it's a lot). There are Categories and blogs galore, all of which will provide you with many exciting, interesting hours – the well documented Brazilian appreciation of the body beautiful will see to that!

SOCIAL MEDIA WHITE PAPER BY STRAWBERRYFROG

On the heels of the successful StrawberryFrog social media campaign for Scion (a part of Toyota), entitled Scion Speak, the strategic leadership of the agency have prepared a proprietary White Paper for clients about Social Media and Social Networking. There are some easy to follow do's and don'ts.

Social Media White FrogPaper

Prepared by Chip Walker, Ilana Bryant and Scott Goodson of StrawberryFrog

AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

What is social media marketing?

Social Media Marketing is the act of a brand spreading its message through various social technologies. Right now, it's a failed concept because brands are limited in their approach to social media marketing; they engage in practices that are alienating to users, and do not provide useful services for consumers.
What are the opportunities of social media?

Social media is part of the same "sharing" meme that has brought us the open-source movement, open APIs, Wikipedia and other examples of mass collaboration. An opportunity exists for "sharing" to penetrate into new areas of society and business via new innovations in social media. Opportunities also exist in the creation of new business models in which companies "outsource" tasks (i.e. marketing, R&D) to consumers. There are also opportunities for brands to develop new online social structures that complement those already found offline and also opportunities to monitor, control and influence reputation on the Web
How has social media changed marketing and communications?
Social media has changed the balance of power between marketers and consumers. Consumers now have the power, not marketers. Once marketers release their messages "into the wild," they no longer have as much control over what happens to that message. Instead, consumer ecosystems have the power. Marketing + Communications is no longer a "broadcast" or "mass media" model. Consumers expect a dialogue with marketers, and reward those companies that subscribe to this philosophy.
How should a major consumer brand use Social Media? What are some practical tips for senior marketing management?
Social Media falls between the cracks inside many consumers’ brands because it is so new and it is not funded properly. Inside the major corporate agencies, they are just getting their heads around the web and haven't event started to understand this medium, nor how they can make money off of it. StrawberryFrog believes that a consumer brand should maximize this new marketing tool by being a pioneer, a leader in this area. Here are some practical steps to achieve this.

SECTION 2: STRAWBERRYFROG’S APPROACH TO SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
StrawberryFrog Case Study: Scion Speak

Step 1. Define the ‘Social Strategy’ for your brand.
Many social networking marketing activities fail because they do not define the social strategy ahead of executional concepts. Below are our tips on how to develop a social media marketing strategy with examples from our case study on Scion.

a) Define the key social behaviors of your target online – where are they socializing?
What are the social habits, (e.g. Forester has social networking consumer profile segments such as Critics, Spectators, Sharers etc) on line?
There are also differences in usage by demographics and lifestage. You've got a few groups of people heavily active in social media on a daily basis. Sixty-seven percent of young adults visit their social networking site once a day or more – these are people who are on their computers all day (20s to mid 30 somethings; folks with lower to mid level positions) and people with time to kill (high school, college students). These are also people who feel isolated and often the social networking sites become a central to their life online – looking for friends, finding events, and meeting new people. Social behavior online also changes as we age, older adult users use networking to stay in touch with existing friends and family.
For Scion, the target audience was ‘Creatives’ – they use social networking tools as a means to express and showcase their creativity and individuality among their peers.
b) Identify your brand’s social behavior and objective in the social space – how should it socialize with your target? What is the brand’s primary purpose in the social network? Facilitating self-expression? Listening? What is it’s role at this social party and what useful tools can it create to facilitate this?
One of Scion’s key values is customization. Therefore, Scion had to bring these tools for passionate self-expression to social party. This was identified as the brand’s role in the social context.
STEP 2. Create social media content, don’t advertise on it. If you’re not providing content, ensure you are providing a useful service.

If you look at what Social Media does, it helps people with a certain aspect of their lives. And that is managing their social life. It ENABLES them to DO something they are already interested in. It GIVES them the tools to allow for this. Social media provides a service - information, connection points, etc. Brands are often interrupting that message. They need to figure out how NOT to do that. How to either become part of the service, provide their own service or just limit their level of annoyance on the playground. I'll listen to your marketing message if you're providing me a service. Because people aren't interested in advertising per se - they are only interested in what it can do for them. Call it utilitainment, interactive digital or whatever you want, your brand idea has purpose.

This is exactly what we’ve done for Scion. We created ‘Scionspeak’ a social networking tool that provides a platform and a new visual language that allows Scion owners to meet and communicate with each other in the online and real world. Scionspeak is a virtual language of design symbols that that Scion owners can use to express themselves online and on their customized vehicles. For example, Scionspeak symbols can tell others what kind of music your’re into, what type of relationship you’re in and where you’re from. No two personal Scionspeak emblems will be the same. Scionspeak facilitates social interaction in the online and real world. The social networking content also fulfills Scion’s core brand promise of providing a platform for customization and self-expression for its brand owners.

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.

3. THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

what is the future of Facebook?

Over the long term, it's hard to believe that the phenomenal growth of Facebook is sustainable. It is up to Facebook to continually innovate in order to ensure that it is not a fad. Certainly, the inherent social networking functionality that Facebook represents is not a fad. If you look at all the big Internet players (Google, IAC, Yahoo, Microsoft), it looks like each one has a unique viewpoint of what the future of this social networking functionality should look like.


What social media tools are working well?

Tagging (via del.icio.us) - it's easy, cheap and infinitely flexible. It helps me organize all kinds of content for all kinds of projects and is accessible wherever I go. People like these lightweight, flexible applications. I am also a fan of Google Social which enables you to connect to all social media easily. having great relationships with Google, we can bring Goole to the table as a partner in a new social media venture. In the future, information will become more meaningful, more automatic and more tailored to each of us. Web sites will transform into Web services. The "open API" will become the de facto standard for tech companies.
What’s the longer term future for social media?

Taking a big picture view, we've reached an interesting inflection point in the history of the Internet. Last month, China and the U.S. reached parity in the number of overall Internet users, with China now on a pace to overtake the U.S. by the end of 2008. What happens to the Internet and social media when China is setting the agenda, and not the U.S.?

Digital marketers typically are early adopters when it comes to using new social media tools. The problem is that most non-tech companies are not. That's where the most successful marketers earn their money - figuring out solutions that are cutting-edge, but not too cutting-edge as to alienate corporate stakeholders.

While digital marketers are early adopters, they also tend to follow a herd mentality. When certain technologies or tools are "hot," there is a tendency to pile into those areas, without necessarily keeping the best interests of their clients in mind.