Category: Tech

The viral campaign your viral campaign could smell like

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

So much has been written about the success of  Old Spice’s social media campaign this week, that to say too much about it would be redundant.  But there are a few facets of this campaign which translate well to other attempts to create viral interest online, whether it be for a brand like Old Spice, a cause, or a candidate.

1.  Engagement. The central theme of the campaign was keeping random folks involved, and making an effort to actually answer questions from random internet surfers.  The behind-the-scenes strategy was a little bit more sophisticated than that; the team behind the campaign made sure certain bloggers and social media savvy celebrities – key influencers of the online conversation – were targeted to ensure their exposure spread.

2.  Speed. Creating the videos required rapid-fire recordings and uploads, which was no doubt made for a few intense days for “Old Spice Man” actor Isaiah Mustafa.  This short burst of productivity allowed Old Spice to strike while the iron was hot.  That level of immediate responsiveness is the difference between a campaign getting some attention for launching a website before quickly getting stale and enjoying an extended media cycle where they drive the conversation by constantly giving people something to talk about.  Much like in baseball, speed can slow the game down.

3.  Context. None of this would have been possible without a resonant base concept.  Old Spice had spent months cultivating the image of the unthreateningly arrogant and unfailingly confident Old Spice Man, and even more time building its brand as a tongue-in-cheek advertiser.  This week’s campaign did not happen in a vacuum; the online success was supported by months of support from traditional television advertising.

4.  Content. The fact that Mustafa’s Old Spice Man and the commercials were ridiculous and off beat – in other words, entertaining – helped immensely.  The traditional model of advertising for big brands is sponsoring entertainment such as television shows.  Old Spice essentially created entertainment.  It’s nothing new – Budweiser has been making ads that told stories for decades.  It’s just more important in a media environment where it’s tough to catch eyeballs.

One thing to note is that Old Spice is not a nicle and dime start up.  Before the last year or so of quirky ads, it had a long-standing reputation as a stalwart in the field of optimal men’s odors.  In such a position, many brands would have forged a “Coca Cola campaign” – highlighting their history and strength.  It would have been safe but probably not as successful as their current strategy, which allows them to compete with the more sophomoric positioning of competitors like Axe without sacrificing the their old school street cred.

Coming to a theater near you: Facebook

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The first full-length trailer for The Social Network is up, appropriately enough, on YouTube:

There’s no doubt that the inception of Facebook has been a significant development in internet consumption; and it’s one of the most interesting business stories out there.  But after a decade of startups promising to redefine how we use the internet, the “this is going to change everything” rhetoric is a little tired.

So from this trailer, this movie could be any – or all – of the following:

  • Deeply fascinating
  • A trite waste of time
  • Mildly entertaining
  • Creepy (as underscored by the cover of Radiohead’s Creep that the trailer is set to)
  • A way to spend two hours ostensibly with people while paradoxically not interacting with anyone or anything except a glowing screen

Sounds like the perfect movie about Facebook.

When privacy policies evaporate

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Privacy policies be damned, say lawyers looking to make a bankruptcy court liquidate a defunct GLBT website’s membership list of gay and lesbian teenagers.  The users, who presumably signed up thinking their personal information would not be used outside of the site’s terms of service, may find that their identifiable information is treated like an asset and their anonymity is breached.

It makes sense from a bankruptcy lawyer’s perspective: the site is belly up, and that list has value.  Whether or not that value is transferable will be one of the important tech policy issues that needs to be hashed out over the coming years.  It also underscores a pretty important lesson about internet activity: maybe on the internet no one knows you’re a dog, but you have to assume they’ll find out eventually.

Predictable: Apple gets sued, Google creates contrast

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

On the day that Apple is in the news as a co-defendant of an anti-trust class action lawsuit, Google is in the news for making its mobile device application process more open.

Whether it’s impeccable planning or dumb luck, it’s good news for Google, which is under heavy fire for its business practices across the pond.  Google is the enemy of several prominent technology companies: it’s Google vs. Facebook for how to organize and monetize personal information for ads; it’s Google vs. Microsoft for the share of our desktop applications and web browsers; and of course is Apple vs. Google for the smartphone operating system market.

Without overtly saying so, Google is trying to distance themselves from both the iPhone/iPad app store and their worries in Europe with today’s announcement. The open app builder is a nod to the legal and regulatory hurdles that any large company faces, but it’s also an important business and positioning strategy.

Computer nerds of yesteryear may begin to recognize Google’s strategy for taking down Apple.  In the 1980s, Apple computers were an island – Apple software only worked on Apple hardware.  IBM, the other major personal computer manufacturer,  built a platform that could be cloned, resulting in “IBM-compatible” computers.  As computers found their way into the home, the consumer had two choices – one computer that could run software built for multiple platforms, and one which could only run Apple-specific programs.  It didn’t kill off Apple’s computer business, but it’s the reason that Windows PC’s (the descendant of the IBM-compatibles) have the market share they have today.

Today, Google’s Android OS is available on multiple smartphones from multiple carriers, just like Microsoft’s MS-DOS was available on multiple types of computers by 1989.  And Apple’s iPhone only runs apps designed specifically for Apple’s iPhone.  And by democratizing their app process, Google is trying to remind us all of just that.

Co-stanza!

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

To follow up on the trend of politicians seeking to avoid YouTube, some – like Florida State Rep Mike Weinstein – have gone the other direction with a video Mediaite’s Steven Jessop has (rightfully) called the “Cheesiest Campaign Video Ever”:

Cringe-worthy, isn’t it?  Jessop compares it to Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark video.  It took me back to syndicated Saturday-morning kids shows on independent stations like WPIX in the early 1990s, where kids dressed like stunt doubles for Screech would bop around on stage in neon orange t-shirts and denim overalls.  And, it turns out, the company that produced the video makes educational programming for kids, so that’s probably what they were going for.

So it’s a bad campaign tactic, right?  Not so fast.  I thought so at first, too, but then I sat down to make fun of it, and the song stuck in my head.  Jessop pointed it out in his post, and by gum he’s right: the song is pretty catchy.  Like a commercial jingle, it’s annoying at first, then you hear it a few times and you’re humming it in the shower.

Weinstein is an incumbent, so though it may make him seem a little out of touch with younger voters it probably won’t hurt – though they’ll probably lose Kenny Loggins’ vote.

Burying the lede: Whitman’s tech strategy

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Catching up on some news from this weekend… From the San Jose Mercury News (via TechRepublican): “Whitman campaign counting on tech to fidht Democrats’ boots on the ground.”  The article mostly recounts Meg Whitman’s advantage in technology spending and notes that Jerry Brown’s strategy relies heavily on union organizers making “workplace visits.”  (No word on whether those visits involve lead pipes or any other aggressive GOTV strategies.)

The headline and lede make it sound like Whitman is simply spending money, but the details show a bit more refined strategy than that:

Whitman has also made use of increasingly sophisticated database technology to “micro-target” voters through an aggressive mail program. First made popular by GOP strategist Karl Rove in the 2004 presidential election, micro-targeting goes far beyond using bare-bones demographic information such as age and income. Voters get targeted mailers and phone calls based on the kind of cars they drive, food they eat and magazines they buy.

During the primary campaign, many Whitman volunteers eschewed traditional “boiler rooms” and joined online phone banks so they could dial for dollars in their pajamas — or ask voters for their support and record information on them while sitting on a beach with their BlackBerrys.

The technology expenditures appear to be put toward the purpose of making GOTV tactics – like phone calls and mailings – more efficient and easier for volunteers.  And, the article points out that the union goons are doing the same thing – identifying non-union “red county” voters who share their outlook on political issues and reaching out to them.

Tellingly, the missing link here is the Brown campaign, and the article quotes Brown himself calling Whitman’s $2.7 million in online spending wasteful.  The reality, though, is that any campaign tactic costs money.  The fabled 2008 Obama  campaign – still the most prominent example of online organizing – outspent the McCain campaign online, making wise early investments.  The technology didn’t create excitement, but it gave the campaign a way to harness it and translate it into votes.

The article likens Brown’s website to the 1974 Plymouth that Brown used to drive around to demonstrate his working class street cred.  The comparison is apt if Brown really thinks there is a dichotomy between online organizing and “boots on the ground.”  A car made in 1974 and a car made in 2010 both operate basically the same way, but the 2010 model has newer, more effective parts that allow it to perform more efficiently.

Maybe he could take some of that Matlock money and apply it to his site?

Whitman campaign counting on tech to fight Democrats’ boots on the ground

Foursquare of July

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Like Mindy Finn of Engage and others, I’ve been trying to figure out Foursquare – not necessarily because I like it, but because it’s my job to know how it works, and how it can be applied.

Vincent Harris of TechRepublican has some good ideas about it, and businesses like Whole Foods have gotten on the bandwagon by asking users to check in.  Some offer discounts for check ins or mayorships.

Yesterday, I was chatting with a small business owner and soon-to-be restaurateur  about ways he could use it for his business.  He wasn’t sold on its utility.  When I checked in at Nationals Park to watch the Washington One-Man Show, a Facebook friend made fun of me for playing “that stalker game.”

It seems like many just aren’t quite sure what to make of Foursquare yet, which is reminiscent of another social media/network craze from a few years ago: Twitter.  When Twitter first hit, it instructed users to tell everyone what they were doing – making it sound like a glorified Facebook status update.  When people started understanding the ability to communicate in public conversations with 140 characters – and the concept of microblogging – Twitter became more than its founders probably imagined it would.

As Foursquare becomes more prevalent, more businesses, organizations, and campaigns will start to take advantage of the ability for people to check in electronically from their phone, and the utility will become more obvious.  Until then, here’s a very telling metric that indicates this isn’t a passing fad: Foursquare’s current value is $95 million, and they’re planning to expand.

Hunting Macaca

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Politico’s headline “Democrats seek ‘Macaca moments” aptly describes the DNC’s new Accountability Project, which invites citizens to record and upload videos of Republican politicians saying dumb things.

Because it’s actually a good idea, this has resulted in some hand-wringing on the right amid fears that Democrats are better at grassroots internetting than Republicans.  But that ignores why this is a good idea: the Accountability Project is a national aggregator and message device.  It seeks to crowdsource the Democrats’ messaging to take to most loony Republicans they can find and hold them up as the standard.  It is a pretty clear attempt to re-gain the reins of the national policy debate, which have slipped through the Democrats’ fingers in the past few months.

All that said, by driving messages that show the Republicans are out of touch, Democrats will save their skin and keep control in November.  (They may have done so anyway, but a few macaca moments will help curb GOP momentum.)

So how to combat this?  It’s pretty easy.

Republicans have cameras too, and Democrats are just as prone to saying and doing stupid stuff in front of those cameras.  What if some enterprising conservative with a flip cam catches them in a gaffe, then uploads the video?  It would seem the obvious way to hold the Accountability Project accountable.

Viacom, YouTube, and what it means for innovation

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

YouTube’s victory in Viacom’s piracy lawsuit will be, in the long term, a good thing for online innovation.

Almost a decade ago, Napster was dismantled because its users shared songs.  The technology it was based on was neutral – and could have been used to share legal sound files just as easily as illegal files.  But the technology became the target of content creators – musicians – concerned about people using the technology for piracy.

Blaming Napster because people used it to do something illegal is like blaming a hotel because someone turned a room into a meth lab.  The same analogy can be used for YouTube’s situation: they built the rails for video sharing.  People could use that to share a bootleg copy of Shrek 8, thus cheating Mike Myers out of his cut of the domestic gross or DVD sales.  They could also use it to share a video of a cat falling off the bed, or to create a video blog, or to jump start a comedy career, or to reveal a Congressman roughing up a college kid, or a Senator uttering something that sounds like a racial slur and changing the course of the 2008 Presidential election.

To be clear, YouTube should be held accountable for helping police piracy when concerns are brought to their attention, just as a hotel owner should cooperate with warrant-bearing law enforcement officials investigating meth distribution that seems to be coming from their hotel.  The people dealing meth should be punished.  If the hotel stonewalls and knowingly protects said meth dealers, they should be punished.  But otherwise, the hotel owner is just someone providing a product for private use, and can’t be held liable for its mis-use.

There are, of course, legitimate questions about how important Google feels it is to do right by the people it makes money off of – and the dicey question of how much knowledge a site can have of the activity before it makes a move.  But the result of the Google/Viacom case has less to do with a clash of the corporate titans than with shielding future start ups from liability (and excessive damages) for honest efforts to build online social networks.  If start up sites are held liable for their members’ illegal activities, it could crush innovation and entrepreneurship.  Under the Napster rules, some poor schmuck who isn’t as big as Google could lose his shirt for building a website in his basement because of the actions of the users.  The YouTube rules are simply more fair.

No one likes citizen journalism

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week may be called anti-indie journalism week.  Consider these three stories:

Each story, in its own way, is based on a lack of understanding of the modern media landscape.  But door number three is the most egregious.

Risen’s comments about bloggers could be appropriate – the downside of a media universe with more outlets is that there are more outlets tat just spew crap, and it is up to the reader to be more discerning.  He doesn’t summarily dismiss the concept of blogs, though he does come off as an arrogant schmuck.  Similarly, the “student” who questioned Etheridge never identified himself as a reporter, which would have been the smart thing to do.

The FTC, on the other hand, is just way out in left field.  The document, which outlines options such as granting tax-exempt status or other allowing reporters to copyright “hot news.”  Really, though, these recommendations are simply reactions to the fact that print newspapers have fallen on hard times:

Although many of the issues confronting journalism cut across different news media platforms, such as broadcast television and radio, most of the discussion in this document will use the perspective of newspapers to exemplify the issues facing journalism as a whole. Studies have shown that newspapers typically provide the largest quantity of original news to consumers over any given period of time. We include within the term “newspapers” online news websites run either by an existing newspaper or by an online-only news organization.

That an online news aggregator like the Drudge Report would seem to count as a newspaper to the FTC isn’t the biggest problem.  The big problem is the concept of establishment journalism, which is the bedrock of the FTC report: professional and somehow specially qualified reporters paid to investigate and package stories for consumption by the reader.   That mindset is what leads a reporter for a prominent newspaper to lash out at internet critics or a Congressman to take umbrage with a question from a reporter without a press pass.

When the reporter or the politician does thinks that way, it’s just stupid.  When the FTC thinks that way, it could also become the law.