When John, Anjali and few others tweeted about their votes for a Pepsi Refresh project I clicked through and in 20 seconds I was in a ‘standing ovation’ mode. Such awesome, admirable, bold, new-media-twitteratis-wet-dream of a project, a project we only dared dreaming about in a ‘what if’ blog posts when talking about the future of marketing
.

And here it is – Pepsi (fuckin) did it. They did not spend money on the annual advertising frenzy that is the Super-Bowl. Instead, Pepsi would spend $20 million funding community renewal events across the U.S. through the Refresh Everything platform. Check out all the details, it is beautifully executed, with healthy looking facebook community, some smart celebrity endorsement and all that. They seem to have ticked all the right boxes on a social-media-powered-campaign list.

R E S P E C T

Unsurprisingly it got loads of attention. Big guns praising as well as some early research findings showing the campaign has already paid off in terms of increased media coverage.

But the Nielsen report looks specifically at Super Bowl related conversations or so called ‘earned media’ so what they found is actually quite obvious – make a bold, well-orchestrated new-news statement and you’ll get talked about. And since Coke didn’t have anything major to stand out with around the Super Bowl frenzy, Pepsi got most of the attention.

But then I recalled the other (social) media frenzy that was around the Coke Happiness Machine viral (1.5 million view on the official video) couple of weeks ago and it got me thinking: in terms of talkability or ‘earned attention’,Happiness or Goodness – who wins the ‘conversation’? So I quickly configured a crude monitoring dashboard…

In the RED corner a $20K or so slippy idea. In the BLUE corner over $20 million bold initiative. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

Volume of conversations since 1st of Jan 2010:

Here is what Pepsi ‘earned’ to date:

Here is what coke happiness machine earned to date:

If you are a cynical, purely ROI driven marketeer, the argument that the Coke ‘shtick’ has generated 10% of the media coverage of the Pepsi project with only 0.1% of the investment is enormously seductive. Yet it’s wrong.

This grossly inadequate comparison actually tells us a good story on the future of marketing. Both projects should be compared to all other brands who did spend millions of dollars on some pretty spectacu-lousy superbowl ads that no one will remember half an hour after the game (or generally brands that keep spending loads of money on insignificant, bland advertising).

If you want to get talked about your best hope is to try and do loads of small, cheap, surprising, awesome things like the Coke Happiness shtick AS WELL AS big, bold, game-changing initiatives. Everything else will most probably fall into the obscure world of uninterestingness (which, frankly, is where 95% of marketing communications naturally reside).

BTW soon enough, the idea of big brands spending loads of CSR money via a shouty crowd-sourcing initiatives will become old news. I bet you that the next big brand that will do something similar will get less than half the attention that Pepsi rightly enjoys with Refresh Everything (but that doesn’t mean that brands shouldn’t invest loads of money in making a change for good).

Think both small and big but most important is to think different. What say you?

It’s good to be back

It’s weird to be back

I really wanted to get back to blogging action but until my sleeping-deprived brain will get back into full capacity let me share a failure with you.

For some time now, I wanted to make a video (the videos you’re about to watch were made few months back). I always thought that while I made my blogging career writing on UGC and YouTube, I have never actually contributed something myself and I was keen to get into a more active participation, so I waited for the good idea. Than one day, when I found myself uncharacteristically hyper-excited with something on my MacBook Pro, it all came together.

As a mac convert myself (and reluctant evangelist) I’ve decided to create a rather tasteless cultural commentary on gadget-porn culture, mac worshiping and user generated advertising. And this is how maclovin was born….

Here is the first installment, called Maclovin*:

maclovin – Watch more free videos

*(No mac was harmed during production/filming. Appropriate measures were taken to protect the macs from apparent risks)

And here is the second – 2 girls 1 iphone:

2 Girls 1 iPhone – Watch more free videos

As you can see, my future doesn’t lie in making videos and while I didn’t do any seeding whatsoever, I can assert with confidence that I suck at viral video. But it was a nice experiment nevertheless. I really enjoyed the DOING bit. And sharing the things you suck at is quite cathartic (emotionally purging, that is) – you should try it yourself!

And to be honest, as this 5th and final report will show (well, it’s first part at least), the most viewed videos on youtube are not really interesting to say the least. You browse through this chart and you feel that Andrew Keen might have a point, after all….

For me, the best of youtube lies in the abundance of stuff and the unbelievebly loooooooooooooooong tail of YT where you find the real gems.

So a year on from the first one i thought I’d write the last and final one, and for this event I’ll do a double bill. First, let’s look at what have changed on the 100 most viewed all times – the ultimate viral chart and interestingly as far as i was able to trace, there are 65 videos that weren’t there in my first report. And secondly, and much more interesting is the most viewed video this month – what are the most popular videos on earth in the last 30 days?

Ready?

100 most viewed video – All Times

So what do we have there? and what can we learn from this chart? well, if you want to understand why MTV are in such trouble take a look at this chart. 36% of the most viewed youtube videos of all times are music videos. mostly through commercial channels that learned to utilise YT but there are quite a lot of videos under the ‘user distributed category’. And thats not surprising at all – youtube is the medium of choice for the ‘yuf’ – they can simply find there everything they want, whenever they want it.

So what have we got there? What does it take to get into the most viewed of all times?

The #1 most viewed video is still the almighty history of dance with 54,358,931 views. Closing the chart it’s this music video with 6,116,868 views.

The newest entry to this chart is this paris hilton goes to jail spoof video – it’s been there just over 2 months but already got over 8.5 million views (now thats what i call viral!).

The rest are:

User Generated 39% – there are 3 main categories here:

(1) skills – we are very fascinated by extraordinary skills whether it’s dance, or music, magic or ninja stunts. (11)
(2) new talent stuff: directed/animated – from simple lip syncing, through political commentary to more series budding of talent (20)
(3) home video – cute stuff rules!, as well as some extraordinary things caught on camera. (8)

User Distributed – 30% of which 12 are TV of film moments, 14 music videos, 4 manipulative daft stuff

Commercial 29% – 22 music videos, 4 trailers, 2 ads and this funny as fuck SNL video.

100 most viewed video This Month

This one was much more fun to analyse. I really like the fact that this chart is a zeitgeist window to the (connected) world. Everything that matter to people, every piece of news, entertainment, budding directors, UGC – really great abundance of stuff.

Now, interestingly enough the previously used content categories (generated, distributed, commercial) are somewhat problematic. As youtube became mainstream, naturally it’s been taken over, or less critically, been evolved to become a mature entertainment platform for semi-professionals to do some neat stuff. So it’s not UGC in the teenage-bedroom sense of the word but more of a young directors and producers that know what they are doing. youtube is now the channel of choice for self-promoting and self-piloting. young producers/directors/comedians/actors/musicians put their art out there and hope to be discovered by a big network – it’s simply the biggest and most democratic platform to try your luck at the show-biz. And I was glad to find what you can call emerging entertainment formats like this and this.

The #1 most video in the past 30 days is this instant YT hit – it’s got the perfect ingredients – it is extraordinary and totally out of context. 1500 Philippine inmates doing the Thriller – you cannot go wrong with something like that. Closing the chart is the almighty spider-pig. In between these two we have:

User Generated 33%

Huge variety of interesting videos of all shapes and forms. New faces, Old faces, vloggers, musicians, directors and new inspirations. Most of them are not my cuppa but you cannot argue with success. Check out this weirdo who seems to be the latest phenomena – he got a couple on this chart and inspired few videos in response. Oh, and the stuff that comes out of the USA election race is great. Again, not my cuppa but I really like to the how the coming elections are the youtube elections, it’s fascinating.

User Distributed 19%

Sports (6), news (11) and music (2). We definitely like celebs misery and crazy accidents as well as new heros (especially if they are 9 years old)

Commercial 48%

When you look at the hits on you tube, you realise that it took a couple of years for mainstream media to understand and utilise the power of youtube to reach millions of people and so almost half of the most popular content today on youtube is in fact commercial in nature. 17(!) trailers, 13 music video, 3 “virals in disguise”, and 12 channels of all sorts like nogoodtv, perez hilton, lonleygril15, EA and more. As I said, it’s a bit tricky to categorise these as they still have the roughness of UGC but on the other hand it seems like a full time job for this people with very clear ambitions in mind.

And lastly, the award for most successful use of youtube for marketing communications goes to…..will it blend? Simply good. Especially when they blend the…. iphone.

OOOH, this post has turned out to be way too long. Enough for now. Good bye YouTube reports. I’m looking for some new news now. And actually working on my own. shhhhhh.

earlier today when I saw the new verizon viral campaign I thought they have failed on the basic rule of viral, i.e instant gratification to the user and easiest means to spread it / share it with friends. and the ‘create your own film’ format feels a bit yesterday.

but when i got my film via email (arrived after 8 hours while they said up to 24) it took me by surprise with both it’s slick production and the sheer ramdomness of the ‘plot’.

check out my grayson perry-like alter ego sam kicks some ass…

fantastic danish viral film to encourage young people to engage woth science and engineering (see comment from Claudinho below)
via the great Neil

Derek is five years old and he weighs about a ton. He lives in a field (can’t tell you where, it’s the biggest secret) , along with a couple of his heifers. When it comes to bulls he’s pretty much the daddy. Nobody messes with Derek.

His hobbies include bellowing and wandering around.

Here’s what his farmer has to say about Derek:

“Derek doesn’t say much, but I always know what he’s thinking.
He’s mostly got grass and heifers on the brain.”

If you are able to guess where derek will be everyday at 3pm you might get yourself a pair of the hottest tickets to this summer’s glastonbury. now seriously this is one of the most brilliant projects i’ve been involved with here at poke and it has never been done before. we actually tagged derek with a gps device and a complex system of grids live cams and satellites and whatnot to make this project live and real.

play with it – i particularly like the very short videos of derek with his farmer, his vet and an animal psychologist are painfully funny.

Tagging is this meme/viral that going on for few weeks now where bloggers share 4 interesting personal stuff and then pass it on to 5 other bloggers. Cute in a geeky kind of way….

So…here’s my riff:

1. I was sleepwalking :  As a child, between 5-11 years of age I used to drive my parents crazy with my night roaming…They used to find me in bizarre places in and outside the house doing weired stuff like stuffing pillows into sandwich bags. No one knew what’s the deal and it just stopped later.

2. I spent 3 weeks in North Carolina training with the Delta Force . I’m not proud of my military experience (it’s compulsory in Israel) and today I’d rather go to jail than put on a uniform or hold a rifle in my hands, but back than when I was sent to spend 3 weeks with the real Chuck Norrises, jumping from helicopters into top floors windows and buses running in 50mph and other "save the world" crazy stunts, it was actually quite fun.

3. I was playing the flute for 7 years. From 4th grade to 11th, I was playing the flute in my home town’s music conservatorium, including the city youth orchestra.

4. I did the London triathalon(1.5K swim/40K cycle/10K run).  A year and a half ago. Was great, but I think I enjoyed the training regime and self-discipline experience [which I so lack in my life] more then the actual event. I actually had to take 10 weeks swimming course as I never swum front crawl. It’s really experiential to acquire new physical skill at 31.  I look forward for the next one in the summer.

Passing the microphone on to [no obligation guys]:

Iain, because what happened with my recent move to poke made me abandon my radical rationalism for a week and enjoy contemplating good karmas and stuff…’ ‘everything happen for a reason’ – IN,  ‘pure coincidence’ – OUT. Spirituality is the new black!

Faris, for his fantastic gig over at Jenkins ‘ blog with "transmedia planning" -  his excellent contribution to the blogosphere. I see a book 3-5 years from now.

Young Man in a Hurry – A sharp minded account exec and a good fella from Grand Union. He started blogging recently and I hope he’ll keep the habit.

Paul Colman of Life in the Middle. I started reading his blog only recently and its great fun and insightful.

And finally, Dino. The man, the DJ and best guy on the block.

I gave them the expected stuff about the ways in which social-technological developments alter the balance of power and force marketing communications to re-invent itself. My overall argument was that we’re heading towards better relations between markets and consumers where bad products/brands won’t be able to be disguised behind clever marketing, witty taglines or flashy advertising and we can see a growing trend towards authenticity (truth and beauty) in communications.

You had to see the resistance! Put aside the fact that the audience were for a large extant left- leaning, Neomi Klein sort of a fans, there is still some things to learn from their perception of marketing – not as academics but as ordinary people/consumers.

Some of the arguments I’ve heard:  "marketing is essentialy evil", "advertising is loud and intrusive" "marketing is corrupt and manipulative", "Brands and corporations took over our public spheres" etc. Not that I didn’t know or feel it myself but still, the level of loathing and distrust between consumers and marketing communications is immense. People are just fed up with the sleaze and bullshit that governed marketing communications in the past 20 years (yes, we are making a generalization here but the fact that some brands are ‘good’ doesn’t change the overall perception of marketing as evil)

But there was some interesting argument that I took with me and was thinking about in the last few days. Martin argued (I hope that I re-state his argument accurately) that the appearing of a ‘jargon of authenticity’  in marketing and public relations, which are essentially opportunistic exercises, is very problematic and deserve scrutiny. Opportunism and existential authenticity  are moral concepts in tension. Authenticity, he argued, manifests itself persistently in the face of adversity; where the opportunist only sees an opportunity to change tack.

I think that if you leave for a second your critical views on consumerism society and the effective economy, you cannot dismiss the fact that markets and marketing where here from the dawn of humanity and as Uri once said, "Marketing communications, specifically, remain one of the most prolific, complex and powerful aspects of human sign activity."

Therefore, you cannot, to my view, regard marketing – a primal human activity / interaction – as essentially moraly flawed. From the early days of civilisation people were involved in production and trade of products and goods so that cannot be inherently immoral. But it might be true that in the 20th century, especially the last 40 years or from the beginning of mass commuications, marketing, to a large extant has become manipulative, corrupt and therefore unethical.

We now know that there is a growing trend towards authenticity and back to the good old days where if you have a good product, people will tell each other about it and you can expect good business… I want to believe that marketing communications is undergoing a real change towards openness, transparency, dialogue and enrichment and that authenticity, whether forced upon or genuinely pursued, will help consumers to regain trust and better relations with brands – after all they are here to stay so at least we should have some fun together…

UPDATE: In the same vein, read this thoughtful rant on brands in today’s Guardia

(pic via)

This is great. Two Californian peace activists, Donna Sheehan and Paul Reffell, just announced on the 22nd of December as the day of Global Orgasm for Peace. This is so brilliant I’ll let them speak for themselves:

GlobalOrgasm.org Mission Statement

The mission of the Global Orgasm is to effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy. Now that there are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti- submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high- energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.

The goal is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world.

Global Orgasm is an experiment open to everyone in the world.

I always say that the best things are those where the online and offline world intertwine and I hope that this project will get bigger buzz than Snake on a Plane and Dove Evolution combined…

….On a personal note, if that what will bring peace to the world I’m willing to go to a much greater length than scheduling myself an orgasm on a friday night!

[Check out the microsite and blog - these people are either web savvy or hired the right people do do the online work. Simple, modern design, rich media, downloads etc. By the time I write this post, the blog's Technorati rank is 218,639 (19 links from 16 blogs), lets see where will it go.]