The cost of digital isn't cheap

+ In my last post on Data and Creativity I touched on something that I feel needs a little more thinking through and analysis. That is the perceived cost of creating digital vs. traditional campaigns, communications, etc.

Let's take a quick look at the different creative steps between these two areas:

Notice there are more check boxes for digital than traditional. Which means more people touching the work, and more time it will take to do these steps. There are even some left out but can be folded into some of these higher level wrappers.

And yet, we still see clients expecting so much more from digital for so much less. It's also interesting to note that the expectation of costs for different distribution of a similar tactic, such as video. If you're making a video for a traditional agency, it's called a TV spot. If you're doing it for digital, it's called an online video (please don't call it viral). Yet the production costs typically are widely different, with a TV spot costing millions, where an online video is expected to be created for a few thousand dollars. (And yes, it's true that some amazing online videos don't need huge production budgets, but sometimes they do.)

The AAAA's have a worthwhile read if you find this interesting. It's a white paper by Joe Burton who was EVP/COO of McCann Worldgroup San Francisco at the time and is currently President & COO of SocialChorus. A Marketer's Guide to Understanding the Economics of Digital Compared to Traditional Advertising and Media Services. Although it was published 4 years ago, it still hits on important facets that many have yet to come to terms with. He boils it down to four main reasons why digital is more expensive than traditional due to its complexity.

1. It's more labor intensive because there are many more executions to be created in a wider range of media. And tactics are not equal in time and effort needed to create them. They are also more dynamic and subject to change which requires more resources. And, if you're doing something never done before, it's going to take longer and cost more than some off-the-shelf solution.
2. It requires more production work to be done in-house, unlike traditional that outsources more of it. This leads to needing more in-house experts from programmers to planners.
3. The lines of media, production and creative services need to be more intertwined, which can cost more for agencies who need to reorganize to desegregate these groups which traditionally are much more separate. This also can lead to more complex job functions and organizational structures than in a traditional agency, which again leads to more people and costs.
4. More value can come from digital as it can be targeted, tracked, measured and adjusted on the fly (again, more time and people).

But in the end, Burton states that these returns outweigh the extra cost. Often the media spend for digital can be minimal compared to traditional, which should allocate more dollars to other aspects, such as creative, planning, and implementation. But more often than not, that still isn't the case for most. Hopefully we will still see this change and more clients will understand the value of putting more of their budgets to digital while parsing out more to relevant areas that will help tackle marketing objectives.

Branding and Digital: Part 2

+Part 2: The birth of digital

About 13 years ago when I was just getting into the business, I would have never thought really about doing what I do today. If someone had asked me in an interview for my first job if I ever thought I'd be creating campaigns where users used a app on a branded Facebook page to control a water gun as part of a game to melt ice and free a cup of a client's product to win a prize, I'd have thought it would be awesome and cool, but possible? No way. Nor would I have thought that I'd ever need to come up with an idea like that.

What was happening then was that people were building websites. In fact, one of my first projects at my first agency out of school was working on redoing the agency brochure and website. Soon there after, we were also getting into banner ads. Good old 15K gifs. Oh yeah. Super sexy. But I was at a traditional agency where those were asks of clients for whom we were also doing radio, TV, print and collateral. The approach to digital was as it was for any other project. There was a brief. There was a copywriter/art director team that brainstormed ideas together. Comps were boarded up for presentations.

After that job, I continued working on digital as it grew and became more of a staple. But, a lot of it was also being done by folks with more of a tech background. It wasn't about the idea. It was about repurposing the TV spot or print ad for the web that the "branding" agency created. Digital or interactive shops weren't seen as having the talent to create something new. And, at the start of digital only shops, that might have been the case.

Thank god things have changed.

I'll be honest. It bothered me a lot that I had clients and even employers who didn't think that it was OK for a good idea to come from the digital shop. I've heard things like "That's branding. Our broadcast agency handles that." Really? So you'd lose out on a great idea, just because it didn't come from the right people? Now, that takes us down a different path, but seriously, this is the kind of thing that has been going on. You also had copywriters and designers working separately, even though Bernbach's efforts showed how much better the work tends to be when you team them up together.

So, what's changed and why?

Well, for one, digital shops are actually seeking out conceptual thinkers. They're looking for the storytellers. They're looking for more well-rounded creatives, technologists, and even account people and then designing better ways for them to work together. That's a huge piece of it.

I think the other is a function of integration. With that there has already been a couple trend cycles of agencies trying to do everything/be full-service or being very specialized. There's a sway back and forth over time as clients think they want one or the other. But what they really want is integration. No matter which agency comes up with the main idea, they want all agencies playing nice around that big idea so it is seamless to the consumer. Well, sure, great. We all want that. Unfortunately, in order to get there, a lot of times it forces agencies to compete against each other. This has caused those digital only shops to look outward and try to learn from the bigger agencies who may at one time be winning more accounts than them depending on where in the cycle we are. Rather than trying to create a new structure, they've looked to the way in which traditional agencies have set themselves up. They also started bringing in more people who had started at those agencies, brought the ideas with them and implemented them because that's what they knew.

And then there's the agencies who were full service to begin with, and remained that way and added digital as just another offering, like GSP and W+K.

With only about 15 years under its belt, digital is still new. It's still figuring out what it is and what it needs to be...and what it wants to be.

Go back and read Branding and Digital: Part 1.

Branding and Digital: Part 1

+ You so often hear about branding and broadcast, print or even out of home. But what about in relationship to digital? Social? Email? 

I recently watched Art & Copy. Yes I'm late to viewing this film. But that's not really relevant. I spent an hour and a half listening to some of the greats talk about the business. Talk about branding and the work they've done. Folks like Lee Clow, Hal Riney, George Lois, Dan Weiden, and Mary Wells Lawrence. They talk about finding key ways to talk to people. Finding the nugget of truth about a product or life and wrapping them together. Making someone feel something. Telling a story of what the company could do for you. Campaigns like "Just Do It", "Think Different", and "I Want My MTV" struck a chord. They're as Weiden says like lightening striking. Concepts and ideas that resonate with the population and become part of pop culture.

It's all about branding. But what is branding? Branding is defined as "the promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand." So, then what is a brand? 

David Ogilvy's defined a brand as: "The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised."

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."

For a very long time, the role of branding has been held by TV spots, radio ads, print ads, billboards and the other rash of tactics in the realm of traditional advertising. That role has been all about storytelling, image and the emotion it conveys to the customer.

This is what i learned in school and what I practiced at the start of my career when my bread and butter was radio spots, print ads and the like. 

These days I spend all my time working in the digital world. And I try to apply these concepts to the work I do on a daily basis. But how does any of this thinking really translate to the new media that's out there? Or does it?

For the five or six of you that actually read this blog when I post something new, this is what I want to explore. Because I think what is going to finally happen in the near future is that we will see much more of these concepts brought into the digital workplace. And for sure, this is already starting to happen. But I have a sense that it will blow up even larger in the next few years while taking some different turns.

Stay tuned.

Google+

+Last week, Google jumped back into the social network fray with the beta launch of the Google+ project, which describes it as “...makes sharing online more like sharing in real life.” Beta invites started going out last Tuesday and were shut down late Wednesday night after “insane demand”. It has yet to be restored. I've got a few people asking me to invite them still. (Supposedly there is a work around now).

It’s interesting to watch this unfold for Google. One would hope it fares better than their Orkut network, which was launched in 2004--about 2 years before Facebook opened to the public--and after a failed bid to buy Friendster a year earlier. Orkut’s popularity faded in the US rather quickly and currently is dominated by users from Brazil (48.0%) and India (39.2%). It will be interesting to see if Google+ adopts any features or functionality that they’ve already built for Orkut.

From circles to group your friends and family (for more targeted broadcasting of information) to huddle (which allows for group video chats), there are some pieces of functionality which seem to be the genesis complaints and dreams of users of other social networks. In addition there’s the tried and true: ability to check-in, share pictures (via Picasa), and chat. Down the road, it’s likely that Google will integrate other products such as Reader, Documents and Calendar.

One of the big questions for marketers is what will Google+ offer for brands? The current layout is clean and ad free, but the design is so simplistic that they could easily fit in advertising without altering much. There have been some rumors about brand pages in its future as well (it took a long time for Facebook to open up to brands after going “public”). It will be interesting to see how Google+ plans to lay these out, and whether or not there will be improvements from the way in which Facebook currently handles them. Will brand “apps” be built in HTML5? Will there be clearer navigation to extra pages and content? How often will Google+ update its policies and change its layout?

Nothing but time will tell.

John Cleese for TomTom

+ The newest TomTom campaign features John Cleese in a series of 6 online videos. What's interesting is that none of the videos show TomTom, or how TomTom helps you out of a jam. The online video pre-launch will soon be accompanied by an online and offline campaign. The videos and campaign are created by Pool Worldwide. Dutch media agency MEC is responsible for media tactics and planning. Content and Motion created the global social media and PR strategy.

John Cleese and the selfish bastard - A TomTom Break Free sketch


John Cleese likes traffic lights


John Cleese tries to manage his anger


John Cleese on honking horns



AdStract is doing global seeding and outreach

This and That: 05.28.11

+ Happy Memorial Day weekend to those of you who get a nice, long weekend. Here are a few things I have come across in the past couple of days worth sharing.

- Ben & Jerry's ReadyMade Pint Challenge is a partnership with ReadyMade asking their readers to create a cool, original project using Ben & Jerry’s iconic pint.

- JWT Spain has put together Case-O-Matic, a site that will generate case studies for you...just in time for award show season.


- There's movies and TV shows about advertising. Now, there might just be a board game too! SVA grad, Fatimah Kabba, has created "The Pitch", a game that could, as she tells it, “rebrand the preconceptions about graphic design.” If you like this idea, head over to her kickstarter page to help her get the game off the ground.

- Turkcell in Istanbul were looking to promote their new smart phones bundled with mobile internet. Turkcell’s agency, Rabarba created a live competition through Twitter, in which a smartphone, which was packed in gift boxes and covered with post-its. Players had to tweet what was written on the post-its to unwrap the boxes, using the hashtag #turkcell.
(via DigitalBuzzBlog)

This and That: 05.24.11

+ Here are a few cool & inspirational things I found around the net this morning:

Mini films for Polo as animated GIFS. Bring back the GIFs!

Morgue File: Public Image Archive for Creatives by Creatives. They provide free images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, commercial or otherwise.


VW (UK) True Life Costs allows you to explore how the different ways you spend can make a big difference to your pocket, playing off the tagline of "Unbelievable Value".

Interactive YouTube Music Machine is cool. Click on the video to activate your keyboard which works as a short cut to difference segments of the video, where you can "make music". Best on a good connection.

QR Codes: Hot or Not?

+ One of the highly discussed "new" technologies in the digital world are QR Codes (Quick Response Codes). In some instances you see them everywhere, and in others you don't see them at all.

One UK study that came out last week states teens don't know what to do with QR Codes.

A stand out statistic is that 72% of 11-18 year olds either don’t have the software required to read QR codes or aren't aware their phone can read them.

When shown an image of a QR code only 43% correctly identified that it could be read by a mobile phone, while 19% admitted they didn’t know what it was.

Despite this lack of awareness among participants, 74% of those who have used QR codes believe them to be worthwhile.

Other stand-out findings include:
•    Only 43% believed they could be read by a phone
•    8% of girls thought they were a magic-eye picture
•    Only 33% knew they were called QR codes
•    The most popular use for them was to receive vouchers or exclusive content
•    Liking the brand on Facebook or being taken to a brand's page was less popular than receiving directions

As these stats show, we have a way to go before these are widely adopted in the West. And perhaps if smartphones were sold with the QR readers already on them, it would be a step in the right direction. The East, especially Japan, have a larger penetration of smartphone technology and for them, QR codes have already come and gone in popularity, while we're still trying to figure out what to do with them.

An article on QR Code Hype points out:

This is because in Japan QR Codes have lost their novelty value and they have simply blended into the background, just like other common symbols such as traffic signs. They are simply part of every day life and there has to be a very good reason to stop what you are doing and scan one. Japan has passed the peak of the hype cycle and is now in the ‘disillusionment phase’.

Although, this hasn't slowed down people who are playing with these codes and trying to figure out ways to make them work. This article shows some of these examples, one of which is a hotel being built in Dubai that is covered in QR Code (note that most of these examples are from Japan and the East).

So, what does it mean? Since many still don't know what these codes are or what they do, there is still a level of education that needs to happen for mass adoption. Perhaps it's OK that not everyone knows what they are, and it's only important as another way to connect to those who are more digital savvy. But, the fact that not everyone is aware of them proves one thing to me. As ad people, sometimes we get so caught up in new technology, we forget that we are not the average person on the street. Our level of tech knowledge tends to be a bit higher, just due to our profession. So, we need to be aware of this fact and acknowledge it as we build out our creative strategies.

Have you ever scanned a QR Code?

Creativity in the Digital Space - Part 1

+ The other day the folks at @BHHLabs posted a tweet with a link to an article titled, Creativity in Digital Goes Way Beyond Advertising. It's something that I've been thinking about and have been blogging about on-and-off again.

Creativity in the digital space.

It's there...it's screaming to get out. There's no lack of talent. But what's the problem and why do people continue to discuss it?

1) Role of digital agencies
Often, it's the traditional agency that is coming up with the idea and then shipping it off to the digital agency to execute it in the "online" space. It's not about creating or evolving the offline idea to something that will be powerful and engaging in a different space...just use the same images and copy and "resize" it to a banner ad, website or social experience. Sadly (or thankfully), it's not always that easy for the creative to be effective.

Clients need to be on board and understand that if there is an idea in the traditional space, it might need to evolve to work in the digital space. Can interactivity be added to it? Does it work as a way to get people engaged? Involved? Is it relevant to them? Much more so than just pushing out a message "Hey we have this new thing"...how can you spin it, reverse it, and bring it to life in a way that makes sense for digital?

I've found it somewhat depressing to have clients in the past that have had the idea that digital creatives don't have big ideas. There's a perception that digital just means implementation of someone else's idea with pixels and css styling and Ruby on Rails. But if that's all your digital shop is doing...something is wrong. They should be pushing the ideas they get from the traditional side. They should be bringing you ideas that are big and just as powerful (if not more so) than some TV campaign or print ad.

2) Segmentation of "Creative"
As I mentioned in other posts, What comes first, creative or media? and The New Creative Team, creative is not just about the creative team. It's about different disciplines working together to bring each idea to be the best they can be.

It seems even within the creative department there is a heritage in the digital world of copywriters writing something, then just passing it over to designers to execute the design. Whatever happened to creative teams and a writer and designer (or AD) sitting down and brainstorming the concept behind the idea? Yes, even for a website, that does help to improve the quality and effectiveness of the work. The better integrated the different disciplines, the better the results you will achieve.

3) Too much choice, not enough strategy
With new digital tools and tactics coming out almost every day, there's a lot of choice in terms of how to execute an idea. Some people see a new tool and jump at the chance to use it, even if it's not really the right choice.

There needs to be a strategy for using the ever-growing list of tools we have available to us. What are you trying to achieve? What's the goal? Who are you reaching? All of these most basic questions should be addressed before deciding which tools are most appropriate for you to use...which leads me into the next point.

4) The tactic comes first
"We want to do something cool on Twitter." "Do you have a solid follower base there?" "Well, we have 200 followers but we also don't want to spend media dollars on this. You know, something viral. Our budget is $500."
Well, based on that I would suggest that perhaps this is not the best way to spend your money. Something "viral" with no fan base to push it out and no money to help promote what you are doing is probably not the best idea. But because someone has it in their head that this is the solution...you are stuck. How do you do something creative, and make it successful? You need to start with a sound strategy...then idea or concept and then go to your list of tactics.

The phrase "fish where the fish are" is something I've heard often when talking about using social media as a platform for a campaign over a microsite, but is that enough of a strategy? Does it make sense? You have a better chance of catching the fish if the bait you are using is appealing to what you are trying to catch.

5) Fear
Too many brands and, yes, even agencies, are afraid. They aren't ready to innovate...to do what has not yet been done before. Instead, they mimic--copying what other brands are doing and have done. Why? They fear failure. They fear the new...the unknown...the idea of being different. Yet, new creative ideas need this. They need to be unusual and difficult. Especially in the digital space where this includes creating something that did not exist prior to the campaign...building a backend that does something no one has done before...it's risky. And risk makes people afraid. But unless you embrace that fear or overcome it, you'll always be a me too when it comes to creativity.

Now, these are just a few of the issues that I see. More to come in Part 2.

Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know.

Social Media Doesn't Run On Its Own

+ Everyone and their brother is jumping on to the Social Media bandwagon. And, why not? It's apparently cheap, easy and anyone can do it. Or is that a bag of lies?

1) Cheap. Not really. Sure it's cheaper than a :15 Super Bowl spot or your average commercial. But it does take resources. You need someone or a staff of someones to staff and monitor your properties in the social space. This person/people are responsible for posting Facebook status updates, tweets as well as responding to wall comments, tweets, etc. It's not a one way street. That's what is so exciting about this new channel. But someone(s) have to be there to mind the shop. It's always on, even if your business isn't. Social Media doesn't sleep.

Look what happened to Motel 6 on their Facebook page after not paying attention (click to enlarge the image):


2) Easy. Well, it's definitely not rocket science or brain surgery, but it does take thought and planning. A strategy is nice too. What do you want to achieve from social media? What are your goals? Is it right for you? How does it integrate with any other campaigns? It's a lot more than just setting up a Facebook page or Twitter account.

3) Anyone can do it. In theory, yes, sure. But should anyone? Would you hire just anyone to manage other aspects of your brand? Deal with customers? Probably not.

What Comes First? Creative or Media?

+ Going back to my Advertising Basics 101, I was taught that the idea came first. The creative concept always came before media. How could you buy ad space if you didn't know what you were going to put in it? What if the concept tied to a specific kind of media? How can you buy that if you don't know what the idea is? What if it doesn't even need paid media?

But, unfortunately in the digital space, too often it's the media plan that is required to be done before the creative has even been briefed or kicked off. But why? It's an answer I'm having trouble finding. According to this article, it claims that the reason for it was the "wild west"...with little standardization in ad units.

As Internet advertising grew in popularity and real campaigns came online, agencies struggled with media planning turned on its head: instead of the ad concept and creative coming first for which the media buyer had to only locate placements, the lack of standards meant the media plan almost had to be developed before creative development could be started.

Ok, fair enough. But in 2002, the IAB helped provide standardized ad units. It's now nearly 2011. So, why is this still so prevalent?

Well if you look at this chart below which shows a very typical digital process overview, you can see that the media plan comes before the creative brief in the work flow. It happens before any "ideas" are supposed to be created and at the same time a budget is being figured out for the project. (That is also strange to me...how can you scope a project when you don't know what you're going to be creating?)
(Chart found here)

Perhaps it's because approximately 75% of a advertising budget is allocated to the media buy instead of the creative execution. And for the most part, that's considered OK. But, how do you build ground-breaking ideas with 25% of the budget? Sure, there's being as creative as possible, but what about the cost of execution? There are some that say that production budgets on average should not exceed 10% of the paid-media. Another stat I found states "three to six dollars is spent on the media buy for every dollar spent on production." So, let's see...your client spends $100,000 on media for a campaign which would leave $10,000 for production. So, that doesn't leave much for bringing an idea to life. Maybe you'd get one banner ad with resizing...possibly with a landing page. Good idea dead. Impact dead. Creativity dead.

Why do we continue down this path? Part of it is the archaic perception that digital is cheaper. It might have been back in the day when there weren't real agencies doing the work and you had a handful of cutting-edge tech focus folks in a start-up company that were jumping on a new channel. But now, over a decade later, we're still acting in the same way, when we should be modifying and growing our business to better suit the needs of our clients. We should be making them understand the value of good production and proving its tie to the ideas we need to bring to life. This is especially as digital starts to encompass more video and leverage the latest technologies to bring the ideas to life (including the need for tech discovery), rather than just allocating percentages of budget to the media buy.

In fact, a study by comScore ARS has shown that creative quality drives more than half of the sales changes for brands analyzed, four times higher than the impact of the specific media plan involved. But how can you do that if you're hamstrung by a piddly budget? You can't.

I'm not the first to post on this topic. Rick Webb over at Barbarian Group wrote Banners - The Media, Creative Scism and Media Planning(the first post on the page). Both of his pieces were written 1.5 - 2 years ago. And yet, I still see the same things. We have not evolved the situation. We are not building a "better mousetrap". Sure, some poeple are, but in the grand scheme of things we continue to trap the big idea in budgets, politics and old(ish) habits.

In an ideal world, the idea comes first...then the media and executions.

This and That: 08.21.10

+ I'm easing my way back into blogging again. Life (read: work) had gotten the better of me the last few months. So to start off, I'm going the easy route with a list of things I've been reading the last couple of days. ;)

+ The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet from Wired about the shift from browsing and searching the web to getting and app platform interactions.

+ 8 Social Media Treasures We Learned from Old Spice points out some of the key things that made this campaign successful. Personally, I think these learnings are ideas that should be in any campaign, social or otherwise. They include: Originality; Don't Talk, Do; Be Human; Mix It Up; Don't Be Obvious; Humor; Don't Sell, Conversations Will Come; Real Strategy. The biggest success for the campaign was that they weren't afraid to go to a place of absurdity that would resonate with their target audience. Too many brands are afraid to do this. Or, they do a watered down version that falls flat. It's part of the reason that this campaign is one of my favorites from this year.

+ Infographics to make you drool found on Flickr. (hat tip brandflakesforbreakfast)

This and That: 06.16.10

+ A couple of the things I've been reading the last couple days. A lot about ideas, social media and more.

+ There's more to Social Media than Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Social media and social networking are not the same. Social media are the tools and social networking is what you do in the communities. You can use one to enhance the other, but they are not the same.

In fact, it's not about those sites. It's about a cross section of community sites, blogs, bookmarking sites, photo sites, sharing tools, audio and video tools and some even more advanced tools that are used in conjunction with one another to have a robust social media experience.

+ Marketing Is Losing Its Mojo - Looks at how social media and analytics are no substitute for big ideas.

All this focus on social media and analytics seems to be sucking the creativity out of marketing. Time was, brands developed big ideas and delivered and communicated them in unique and creative ways. Now it seems marketers are only interested in tactics and metrics.

Where is today’s equivalent of Apple’s groundbreaking “1984” spot? Or of the classic “Think Small” print ads from VW? Certainly media and communications have changed, so a big TV spot or newspaper campaign probably isn’t the right approach for transformational marketing. But lately it seems the pursuit of breakthrough marketing creativity has taken a backseat to work on more predictable and achievable efforts.

This is a serious threat to marketing’s ability to drive business growth. While there’s no question that social media includes some very powerful new communications platforms, we must not confuse tools with content. At the end of the day, the effectiveness of marketing is based on representing well the brand identity and positioning.

We also need to first think “what,” then “how.” Carpenters don’t study their toolboxes to come up with ideas for furniture to make. Composers don’t begin writing symphonies by identifying the instruments which will play them. So marketers shouldn’t start with social media tools and then try to create a brand idea that lends itself to the platform.

+ What's the Big Idea? is a short piece that looks at the big idea.

When the great idea sparks, it’s the creative instinct that sees the glimmer of something special. To survive, the creatives must protect it. That’s their toughest job. Sure, it’s on brief, but that doesn’t make it comfortable – that makes it the most fragile thing on the wall. It takes guts for others to embrace it and for the creative to defend it. If it’s attacked or dismissed too soon, it will fizzle out. Left unsupported, a nitpick or nay-say will be its death. It’s scary.

That scariness is what makes an idea original – the real thing, made up of truth, skill, and cleverness, something that’s never been seen before. It’s too red, it’s the wrong size, and it’s colored with a child’s crayon. It bothers. It zags, and then zigs, always spinning right on the edge of what’s expected, but never quite dipping down into it. The great idea doesn’t look like other ads in the category and it certainly isn’t what the client asked for. It’s quite impolite. It’s the one that makes noise and creates verbal brawls at every presentation. It’s polarizing. Half the reviewers break out in hives while considering it, while the other half wish they had thought of it.

+ I'm Comic Sans is a funny write up from the point of view of Comic Sans.

+ A fun animation set to Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, where he discusses at length Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us.


+ A brilliant speech from Gareth Kay about Ideas that Do. (Yes, it's a bit old, but I'm trying to catch up)

This and That: 04.25.10

+ Fun post on Adland.tv showcasing Shakespeare's influence on advertising in honor of his 446th birthday.

Confused or curious about Facebook's new announcements? There's a nice comprehensive article over at ReadWriteWeb you should read.

Here's a bit of fun, nicely done: Trustworthiness of Beards.

Webby Awards are up. Vote or just explore for some inspiration.

LBSN - Trending

+ This year's hot topic seems (so far) to be LBSNs, also known as Location Based Social Networks. There's a lot more of them out there than FourSquare, the one which seems to be on every marketer's mind and is getting the most amount of press. The plethora of articles and blog posts about these types of social networks grows each day as people are trying to figure out the best way to leverage use these to the advantage of brands and as a way to take their social media strategies farther.


There's a list of LBSN here. It's not complete but it gives you an idea of what is out there and how competitive the LBSN "market" is getting. Apple is even rumored to be joining the fray with its own LBSN called iGroups.

For a long time, I had no desire to try out any of these services. I wasn't interested in having people know my location 24/7. I didn't see any added value to using the services. Sure, I kept up on all the news about them and understood how they worked. I mean, I work in the business, so it's necessary.

A couple weeks ago, I went on vacation and decided to test a couple of them out. I selected the ubiquitous FourSquare, the slowly growing Gowalla, and Yelp. It was a bit of a pain, I will admit, having to not only check in on one platform, but all three. But it was research so I was willing to deal with it. Here's what I've found so far:

Foursquare: Founded in March of 2009, Foursquare has been around for just about a year, and launched last April at the SXSW Festival. In that time, they're closing in on 1 million users with over 22 million check-ins by its users.
The pros:

• Many locations are already in their system. This makes it easier and quicker to check-in to a location.


• If you check-in the most, you get to become the Mayor of a location. Watch out ego. Funny that it's Mayor (as in elected official), vs something like King or Queen.


• Checking-in at your frequently visited places is quite easy.


• Overall UX is intuitive and simple.


• Because of mayourships, brands can see who frequents a business most often and many have attached prizing around that, such as free apps at a bar for being the mayor.


• When adding a new location, you can enter a street address in the event that the GPS on your phone is off a little bit. This is important because if you're trying to check-in and not close enough, you won't get points for it.


• If you don't want people to know where you are, you can check in to a location that is not on the map, without adding it (you appear "off the grid") to still get points for checking in.


• If an address is incorrect, you can flag it as such. Also can flag a venue as closed.


• You can see your friends stats, to-dos and tips.


• Available on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.


• From the info screen for your individual friends, you can send a text, email, call or view their Twitter stream, in addition to seeing their friend list.

The cons:

• You can't see where your mayorships are for or what mayorships your friends have, unless they have checked into it (then you see it as an icon next to their name in the "check-ins" list--but not through their profile.


• Serivce isn't available everywhere, yet. But it is available in many major markets.

Gowalla: Founded in 2007, Gowalla is available in about 7,500 cities and as of March 2010 has approximately 150,000 active users.
The pros:

• Because this LBSN is not quite as popular in certain geographic areas, you have the opportunity to be a founder by adding new locations (see cons).


• The experience is seen more like a game where you can pick up and drop off items at different locations. Point of this? Unclear. But it provides some good marketing opportunities.


• The experience is seen more like a game where you can pick up and drop off items at different locations. Point of this? Unclear. But it provides some good marketing opportunities.


• It has more of a graphic feel with larger icons.


• The service is available everywhere.


• You can see your friends' pins, photos, stamps, friends and add comments to their check-ins.

The cons:

• There are a lot of missing locations in the system. Which means if you are going to new places, it takes longer to check in.


• If you are adding a new place and the GPS on your mobile is off, there's no way to correct for it, which can be an issue when you try to check-in again later on.


• The UX is not as easy to navigate as others. There's something a bit more clunky about it.


• There is no such thing as Mayor or King, but you can be top of a leaderboard. This takes away from the social ego aspect that is important to "games" like this.


• For something that is supposed to be a social network, there is much less emphasis on your friends and what you can view about them (compared to other LBSN).


• Only available on iPhone and Android.


• There is no way to flag a location as incorrect.

Yelp: In January 2010, Yelp added the check-in component to their mobile app. The company was founded in October of 2004. Each month, over 25 million people access Yelp's website, and there are about 1.25 million users of the Yelp iPhone app as of Jan 2010.
The pros:

• Has a well established user base, even if they are not yet all checking-in. The potential for this to grow is huge.


• You can share your check-in with not only your Twitter and Facebook circles, but also your Yelp circle.


• Venues that have not been checked-in at yet are quick and easy to find.


• Local leaderboard shows you how you stack up in your city.


• The UX is simple and clean, while keeping a graphic feel. It's *very* tied to the look and feel of their website, from functionality to design.


• Because the site was initially based around reviews, not only can you check-in to places but you can read the reviews of new places before trying them out.


• Similar to the site functionality, you can bookmark a location without checking in to it. You can also see where your friends are regulars, where they've checked in and their reviews.

The cons:

• Many don't yet know of the check-in capability of Yelp. From a business perspective, that's bad. But the other pros above definitely make it one to watch.


• Unknown if current user base that is all about reviewing will adopt new behavior.


• Check-in is just an add-on to the existing functionality so it's not as slick or quite as dynamic as others that have that as their main functionality.


• There are no badges or pins to collect as you check-in. The social currency is all focused around the local rank for number of check-ins, and instead of being a mayor or founder, you are termed a "Regular" if you frequent a location multiple times.

Obviously each of these services have areas for improvements and growth. This is just what I found by trying all three at the same time. And of course, there are more services out there.

Personally I favor Foursquare and Yelp. I've been a Yelp user for 5 years now. Their UX is simple and easy. The extension of including LBSN to their service seems a natural extension for their brand. Foursquare may not be as graphic as Gowalla, but I think that's why I like it. It's also simple and easy and has no unnecessary frills, and I mean that in a good way. It's easy to figure out what I get from a social currency point of view and they don't have to tell me that I have to drop an item to be a founder (like on Gowalla). It just happens. I don't have to think about it. There is more control over fixing incorrect GPS locations when the mobile device gets stubborn and "lost".

This and That: 03.28.10

+Having my first vacation of the year since last October, I've spent a bit of time thinking and being the most offline I've been in ages. The last day or two I've spent trying to catch up and here are some interesting things I've been reading/checking out.

Razorfish's Fluent: Social Influence Marketing Report - Some of the information in here is interesting. Some of it is a bit of blather turned on its head to sell the agency as experts by making things like comparing "Social Ads" to "Display Ads". Social ads are just rich media ads that engage by pulling information like reviews or other dynamic content. It's not necessarily something new, although the talk as if it is. Additionally, one writer started their piece with "Years ago I penned an article for MediaPost..." - Do I care? No. Stopped reading it right there. There is some good stuff in here if you can weed through the self-promotional crap which seems a bit heavier than prior publications from "the 'Fish".

8 Ingredients for Blog Post Success - Focused at ad agencies and has some good tips on how to structure your blog posts.

Expand your Agency by Narrowing your Focus - Also by the same author as above but he brings up some good points. It seems we're always in a constant swing from generalists are best to specialists being the hot thing. But at the bigger piece that's interesting is if you've got a lot of narrow focused agencies working for your brand, how do you keep them integrated? It can be a challenge, but then again, when an agency tries to be everything to everyone, just like a brand, it becomes nothing to no one.

AR Box for Shipping

+ A great use of Augmented Reality for USPS helps people find the right size box they need for shipping. Nice.

The New Creative Team

+In the past, Creative teams didn't need to worry too much about working or teaming up with other groups. Traditional required some love with your producer if you were doing TV or maybe your media department. But in the world of digital, there's much more to making an effective, engaging and awesome piece of communication. And, it involves a lot more people.

From concept to execution, there needs to be a open communication channel between Creative, User Experience, Technology and Media. Each group plays a vital part in how the work comes together.

Creative
Big ideas, great copy, gorgeous visuals. Yes, this is still your domain. But, unless you're some how able to swing a 48-hour day, you might have trouble staying on top of the latest media and technology and user experience news, in addition to the creative world. You need to buddy up with the members of your team who should be. Your User Experience gal (or guy) will help you find what will make sense for those engaging with what you create, often adding invaluable insights. Knowing that you can trust your Tech team to jump up with a great way to get your idea to the people should make you confident. And, of course, your media team should be working with you for the best way to reach the audience and even help bring the idea to life in ways you might not have thought of.

User Experience
Usability. Requirements. These do not only apply to websites. They apply to many of the things we are now creating as communications. Banners, emails, and more all can benefit from getting your User Expierence guy involved. Higherarchy of messaging, the way in which people typically interact with the piece you are building--it all can be made better with User Experience being pulled in at an early stage.

Technology
Functionality. The "New Team" needs you to help keep abreast of the latest technology out there and provide Creatives with best ways to execute their ideas. Your invaluable input helps make the ideas come to life in ways never before imagined. Sure, that might be a bit "high-falutin'" but it is true. Tech is your baby and what you should know inside and out. What might not have been deemed possible in the past changes almost on a daily basis, and it's your job to help the team know what is possible.

Media
Placements, unorthodox partnerships, there's so much you can bring to the table for the group. First off, metrics of how prior efforts have fared help to provide the Creative team with the information to know if their ideas are really working to reach, engage, inform, etc. Without knowing how what you have done did, you cannot move forward successfully into new ventures because you have nothing to base your success off of. Then there's the myriad of vendors, all (or most) who have their own in-house creative teams as well who are ready and waiting to do your bidding (for a price, of course). You provide the information of what type of media space is available or possible. Sure, the Creative gals might have an idea that they think is impossible to pull off, but you know that XYZ Media is working on a new prototype that would make it possible. Perhaps media is even part of the idea. Bringing in the media team when the ideas are gelled, if not before they set, is always a good idea.

In a day and age when new information is breaking by the minute, it's hard for one group in the new team to keep abreast even of the topics in their "domain" (read: time), let alone other areas of focus on top of that. Now, I'm not saying that Creative should not be looking out for cool tech and media or anything like that. But, it's those who do keep up with the latest and greatest in their field of expertise that can really help you push a seedling of an idea into a full-fledged blossoming plant. This is why building the right teams is so vital. Each role is important to the other and therefore, keeping an open communication channel to share ideas, thinking and information is the best way to have a team that produces the best work possible.

On cup games

+ The other day while hitting up The Facebooks, I saw in my feed a post from Slurpee which was pimping their new campaign all about Slurpee-napping. No, not the snoring under your desk at the office after a night out with coworkers and clients, but the kidnapping kind.

The site is home to the faux Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Frozen Beverages. Your job is to enter the game and try to help track down the "victims'" Slurpees. It's also about collecting codes on cups and by playing the game.

The fact that it's got a code on cup component will definitely help provide success to 7-Eleven, since I'm sure the goal is to increase store traffic. (I mean, isn't that always the case?) Just like Monopoly works wonders for McDonald's with increased purchases and foot traffic during their gaming period. But, even with other brands always on the look out for something that will drive people into stores to purchase and purchase more, one also has to wonder, if it works so well, why don't even more companies use this tactic?

In this day of social media madness, it should be a component of how these games work. Yet, I've not heard of any brand that has leveraged their Facebook, Twitter or other network presences in a way that pushes these type of games to the next level.

This and That: 01.02.09

+ Five Second Test - The five second test is a simple usability test that helps you measure the effectiveness of your user interfaces. So help out a designer and give some good karma :)

Who's Talkin' is a neat metasearch engine that aggregates results from blogs and blog comments, news sites, social networks, video hubs, images, forums, tag sites from over 60 sites such as Technorati, IceRocket, Google Blog Search, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Site is currently in beta, but pretty cool and a nice tool to use to keep track of your brands. (hat tip: micropersuasion)

Round up of 2008 ad campaigns from USA Today and the NYTimes