As Easy As One, Two, Bree

In an effort to promote their advertising tools in a tough economy, Google released a case study on how to market a “stick”. Yep. A stick.

Their thinking is that if they can teach you how to use their tools to market and sell a stick, then you can use their tools to sell anything.

Genius!

It’s a great overview and step by step guide to help you through your marketing campaign, and I just love the angle.

Check it out here: http://www.google.com/advertisers/campaigns/petstick.html

YouTube Pick of the Week

Red headed Henry has some new dance moves for you, this time to Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow”. This kid will make you laugh, smile and also want to take some dance lessons!

Hulu Pick of the Week

Zac Efron guest stars on SNL, but this clip is still making the rounds. New term of the year “gerbil”. Watch the video, it’ll be your new phrase too. ha!

Firefox Add On of the Week

ScreenGrab – I can’t live without this add-on any more. It’s perfect for taking full length screen shots of a long web page. Also, the selection functionality allows you to copy or save one piece of the screen quickly. No more ctrl-alt-prt screen.

Facebook App

Beat the Streak – Baseball season is here, and this Facebook App brought to you by Citizen Sports is a great way to get in on the action. Pick ANY player everyday that you think will get a hit, see how long your winning streak can last. Challenge your friends and the rest of the Facebook community. It’s harder than you think! My current streak: 1.

Video Game of the Week

Street Fighter 4 – SF4 has been out for a little over a month and the reviews are in. SF4 has everything the classic promised plus tons of cool features, moves and characters. Check it out! It’s about time this classic made a comeback.

Movie of the Week

17 Again topped the box office in its opening week this week. It’s a fun movie for the family and a great sign of what to expect from Zac Efron. He is excellent in the movie and starting to take steps away from his sugar coated tween roles in a great way!

Music Pick of the Week

Ciara “Fantasy Ride” – The Fantasy Ride album doesn’t drop for another 2 weeks or so, but Rhapsody has a sneek peak into the album. Also, if you haven’t seen the video for the first single “Love, Sex, Magic” featuring Justin Timberlake. Watch it now here.

Bookmark this page: http://www.facebook.com/marketing

It is Facebook’s Marketing Solutions Fan Page. Lots of ideas and updates on the new things happening in advertising on Facebook. The latest is a case study of Adobe using Facebook to engage customers here.

The first artist I used Facebook to create communities with in early 2006 was Ashley Tisdale. There were no fan pages and they did not make it easy to amass a lot of friends mainly to still distance themselves from the spammy nature that MySpace had become. I even remember having to draw a sort of pyramid diagram to explain the potential of the Friend Feed to the top executives at my company. Luckily, times have changed. Nowadays Ashley does not have her original profile I set up (profiles max out at a certain amount of friends), but she does have a Fan Page which Facebook now has made to look and act almost exactly the same as a user profile. She has 604,592 fans. Facebook gives you a lot of solutions to market to an audience in an effective way. Check out the Marketing page and get a few new ideas and updates.

Being involved with the High School Musical stars from the early days and Ashley Tisdale’s tour with High School Musical, I had the opportunity to watch Zac Efron’s career unfold up close from the early days. He set himself apart from the other cast members making not only smart PR and Movie Role decisions, but smart brand decisions. Every role, every magazine cover, every appearance, even every public outing was extremely strategic and on purpose to set apart Zac as “the guy from High School Musical” and really show the world Zac, the person, the actor, the brand.

Part of making that brand wasn’t just to set him apart from HSM, but also to make strategic steps away from the tween crowd and as a respectable actor, and here’s the key… mainstream. Mainstream meaning, guys and girls of all ages.

Yet, through all his smart movie role choices, etc. He still has NO website or web presence. I’m sure if we spoke to the manager they have some calculated intentional reason as to why, but I’m sorry, I don’t buy any argument against not having a website.

I do not think he should have a teen crazy site so girls can just comment “OMG OMG OMG” on the homepage, because, well that would just defeat the purpose of his mainstream re-branding. And I always hear the argument from celebrities about how it’s part of the plan to stay larger than life, and separated from “regular” people. But no one said it your website or presence had to portray you that way. The whole point of owning your web presence is just that… you own it. You control it. Yes, a community is a living breathing thing, but you have to make calculated steps to lead it the way you like it to go. It just doesn’t make any sense to me to not have one. I also tell all my clients and friends that their e-mail list, or whatever you are keeping it on (twitter, facebook, etc.), is going to be one of your most valuable assets online.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for my business) a lot of actors lean this way. They have never had to build a brand in the past like you have to today. Before, the movie studios did your marketing, and your choice of movie roles did your branding. In my experience, this side of entertainment, the talent marketing side is way behind the times. Although Zac might not need the website for his career, imagine how much more could be happening with it.  It will be interesting to see what Zac finally ends up putting on ZacEfron.com. I’m sure it won’t dissapoint, it will be just a little behind the times.

In the meantime here’s just a sampling of that progression and some of Zac’s key moves (Pictures courtesy of the online destination that IS controlling Zac’s web presence, teen fan site Zefron.com):

promoting HSM in Teen People '07

First big cover opp on Cosmo Girl '07

First big step into re-branding. This cover blasted Zac in front of the eyes of a mainstream (and not just female) audience.

After starring in Hairspray and HSM3, promoting his latest movie 17 Again with the cover of GQ

Photo opp from the GQ spread. So long High School Musical.

YouTube Pick of the Week

Girls Aloud “Untouchable” - Latest single from the British reality-show-put-together girl band and it’s finally available digitally on iTunes.

Hulu Pick of the Week

“Parks and Recreation” - Amy Poehler’s latest comedy premieres and the pilot is on Hulu. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but the ads crack me up and I love Amy Poehler, so I’m looking forward to it.

Firefox Add-On of the Week

RUWT? Sports Toolbar so I can keep track of those baseball scores all day. It also supports scores for the NFL, Soccer, NBA, WNBA, College Football and about 10 more. Great add-on.

Link of the Week

Bootup Labs’ VC Glossary for anyone who has ever had to raise money or deal with venture capitalists or are at a venture backed start-up, you are going to need this glossary for your next investor meeting! Highlights: “Entrepreneurial CEO” = “totally uncontrollable, bordering on maniacal” and “Somewhat below the plan” = “Revenue shortfall of 75 percent”

Facebook App of the Week

Tetris Friends – It’s about time Tetris came to Facebook. Mini Games and built in challenges are included and of course challenge your friends and then gloat your ass off.

Video Game of the Week

The Sims 3 is driving me crazy (in a good way) with their marketing as they count down the days through their Facebook fan page and widgets to the release of this sequel on June 2nd. Look out for this one which will most likely end up being the biggest game of 2009 just like its predecessors.

Movie of the Week

Fast and the Furious 4 had a huge, bigger than expected opening weekend and did not dissapoint in action sequences.

Music for the Week

Flo Rida feat. Wynter “Sugar” – Take it from Flo Rida to appeal to the masses and to the times with his sweet new single sampling Eiffel’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. Looks like NAS was right. Hip Hop is dead. Gangster rap is out. Great single.

I took a creative writing class last year and my teacher always made us do this excersize every week in a journal. Go sit somewhere busy, a coffee shop, the airport, the mall, wherever and just start free writing everything you see. Describe the people, describe what people are doing, everything. The point was to not think about it, just write, and eventually you have a huge repository of characters, descriptions and traits to either use or draw inspiration from.

So how does this apply to marketing creative inspiration? Well, I found that now, it’s been a useful exercise for me to rest my mind but keep it stimulated, so when I come back to a project I am mentally refreshed in a different way than just taking a walk around the block might.

When I realized how often I use this excersize and should write about it on the blog, I was in jurty duty waiting for 7 hours in the selection room. So, yes, I was in need of mental stimulation there. But it worked! When I returned to my project, I felt like I was looking at the creative challenges from another perspective.

Here’s an excerpt from my jury duty free writing (Remember, you’re supposed to freely write and not over think it):

This room is meant to hold over one hundred at least, yet there is only about 30 of us in here today this Friday afternoon. A woman just finished doing some yoga exercises against the wall. She stood on her head and everything. Are you allowed to do that in a city building? Liabilities and what not?

….

Two guys sprawled out on the couches with their head phones in listening to music. One is falling asleep. His head is slowly drooping to the side. Oops, the other guy just spotted me staring at him.

…

What is interesting is all the different types of people. This is literally a random selection of people and you get such a mixed crowd. It’s kind of cool. I wonder if marketing campaigns and ad agencies should just take a picture of the jury selection room, slap a logo on it and be on their way, ha.

…

Wait. An announcement is being made.

…

I’M FREE!

And there you have it. Just free write. It’s not really meant to be re-read like a journal, just kind of reset your creative mind. Try it out, see if it works for you. You might even get inspired with some new ideas.

Meet Nolan Gerard Funk. He’s been introduced to the teen scene as the star of the Nickelodeon TV movie “Spectacular!”.

Nolan Gerard Funk

This is a fun project for a marketer as you get to work with a blank canvas. He’s talked about in industry circles as the “next Zac Efron”. He could be as big as Zac, but in his own right. He’s got more marketable edge than Zac. He’s a little a older than Zac, so he can play the teen or get the “juicy” roles. And, oh yeah, the girls love him just as much.

Be on the lookout for Nolan. Like I said, he’s working with a blank canvas as Spectacular! kind of burst him on to the scene suddenly. He’s yet to put up a website, Myspace, Youtube, etc. but all of that is in the works, and he’s ready to strike while the iron is hot.

He would benefit a lot from launching his YouTube channel and seeding it by replying to all the videos already posted there from Spectacular fans. The girls love that stuff and would definitely respond and create a buzz that he is on the network. He already has some natural buzz happening on Facebook with a few fan created Fan Pages, one with over 1,500 people on it already.

It will be interesting to see what kind of plan rolls out with him and what movie role he takes up next. I’ll keep an eye on this roll out, watch plans early on like this one as you learn the most when you see the landscape from the very beginning.

I’ve always established the brands I work on through community marketing. Build and nurture a community. Get feedback from my community and make them part of the brand shaping process. Use new technologies to help grow your community and interact with them. I’ve employed this practice for 10+ years now through an evolving Internet age and an ever changing culture. Yet when I look back on all those campaigns, I have always stuck to the same handful of community and marketing principles. They may seem common sense, but I’ve also seen how easy it is to stray from the principles and what an effect it can have on your campaign.  In fact, I have case studies from both sides of the fence.

That’s what this blog is about. Let’s explore these principles in practical applications and real case studies.

Here are just a few timeless principles to live by.

• Identify existing trends of your consumer (It’s much easier and more powerful than creating new trends)
• Can you identify the incentives for the consumer? (whether it is emotional or tangible)
• Clarify and simplify your message (if you can’t say it in one sentence, then even you, the marketer, aren’t clear on your own message, how do you expect the consumer to be?)
• Identify your hierarchy (who are the influencers, who is the passive audience, etc.?)
• Don’t over “sell” (too much direct marketing will taint your community. Keep your community pure and real.)

We will explore these principles and their connection and application to community marketing.