Archive for the 'Viral' Category

The election of Barack Obama was a shift in readily apparent ways: Americans elected a non-white person to serve as its chief executive for the first time, even giving him a significant mandate and solid majority of all votes cast. Obama was elected despite being rated the most liberal member of the Senate and let’s say that after the 2008 election “liberal” is no longer a dirty word.

A cogent argument can be made how there was no way a Democratic candidate – whoever slogged it through – could have lost after the generally abysmal leadership (cough, cough) of the past eight years. Two terms of utter disregard for the Constitution (here’s looking at you, unprecedented use of presidential signing statements) and the electorate (approval rating between 16% and 22% depending on the hour), combined with the complete failure of supply-side economics and an ill-advised, unilateral, preemptive war should have handed the White House to the anti-Bush on a platter without much effort expended.

Sure, maybe Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton was bent on winning without trying. The amazing part, though, is how our eventual candidate’s campaign never took a thing for granted. Instead, the used the newest communication gadgetry and tech in unparalleled ways to put together the largest, most sophisticated grassroots coalition recorded as it targeted people who were already “up” on their tech, bringing them for the first time into politics itself. These happy, passionate recipients are the people who gave Obama a sweeping electoral mandate, dudes. (Sidebar: On September 12, 2001, if someone told you that in only seven years Americans would elect as president a man with the middle name “Hussein,” would you have cracked up?)

The key to the movement was getting as many members into it as feasible. During the primary season, the campaign routinely sent emails to supporters asking for small donations, and to call their friends to get on the mailing list. In fact, at rallies all the way through, an Obama staffer would take the stage before the Senator came out and ask every audience member to pull out their mobile phones and call a bud ask what they could do. Viral, to say the least—the real definition of sharing. Eventually, the small Net donations piled up to an unprecedented high. This was Howard Dean’s “bat” from 2004—now on crack. Obama was pulling in the money hand-over-fist, out raising all rivals during every month of 2008.

This effort did not stop the campaign from going for growth. The Obama People figured out that texting was ubiquitous. Short, instantaneous SMS messages that require little or no effort on either end have become pervasive—nay, addictive. The Obama people figured this and when Barack himself made his choice for his running mate, it would be announced via text. All you had to do was provide your name, mobile phone number, and zip code, and you would be the first to know of his much-coveted selection!

This was innovative, damn pragmatic. The campaign harvested hundreds of thousands of hard-to-attain phone numbers and emails to for urgent fundraising and voter efforts. All by getting people to sign up for texts (”alerts”). SMS’s were also sent out to remind people to watch the all important debates, to solicit donations for the Red Cross for Gustav cleanup, and more (And to make it even more cool, texts from the campaign came from 62262–OBAMA.)

The most fascinating use of text messages, though, was the effort employed to “get out the vote” and “organize.” On September 22, the power of texts became clear when this was sent to all phones: “Help Barack Obama organize locally. REPLY to this msg with your 5-digit ZIP CODE to receive Obama news & updates for your area. Thanks, Scott at Obama HQ.” Wow. Just like that. Simple, efficient, no drama, nothing big! Texts had become a two-way medium and used for grassroots for the first time. With very little effort, anybody with a mobile device could get involved (even an old Verizon StarTec!).

Texts were used on Election Day in ways that probably shocked the opposition. So-called Voter Protection Teams (lawyers stationed at polling places in swing states) were kept in the loop regarding mechanics of the day’s events via txts. Raw vote totals were reported to the Boiler Room via texting. This was the most organized GOTV effort ever seen, and all because of the campaign’s willingness to rely on SMS.

While the text messages were very cool and effective, the crown jewel of the new media effort was the Obama iPhone app. Free from Apple’s app store, it provided the user with the news and information about the campaign you could ever want—plus a peek at the candidate’s schedule. Talk about giving access! Not only was your candidate talking to you, he was also telling you how to reach out!

Surely the most interactive part was the ability of the app to feed a user ways to help Obama. There was a function that got users to make calls to undecided voters in crucial (read battleground) states. Clicking the button led to a list of states that dynamically rearranged itself by need and/or importance. Clicking on a state led to a list of names and phone numbers. Bang. Phone banking from the comfort of your little iPhone. No need to waste desk space or minutes at the office. No need to buy more pizza or even hire staff. It was genius.

A couple of hours after the polls in California closed, officially electing President-Elect Obama, a text was shipped to everyone who had volunteered: “We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack.”

Our new leader sends us messages. Far cry from even Bill Clinton, who according to officially documents, sent one email while in office.

Welcome to Barack Obama’s America

Just when you thought consumer generated content (CCG) was dead, and had just been a fad that peaked with the crappy offerings by the likes of Doritos and Chevrolet (man, that one sucked) in the 2007 Super bowl, rebel-rousing grassroots organization MoveOn.org goes and launches a call for entries for a CCG for Prseidentail hopeful, Barack Obama.

Now, remember it was MoveOn.org who launched a CCG contest around the 2004 elections called “Bush in 30 Seconds.” The goal was to explain key points about W and his policies in, you’ve guessed it, 30 seconds. The overall winner, called “Child’s Play,” was created by adman Charlie Fisher from Denver and featured young kids working crappy jobs - at the grocery store checkout, changing tires, cleaning offices, working in public relations (alright, that one didn’t make the cut) - with endline “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?” Nice. It was a great idea well produced. An entry that compared Bush to Nazi Germany had been rejected after it received complaints (from Nazi Germany).

This time around MoveOn.org are calling for entries that put the subject of the 30 second film - Mr. Obama - in a positive light in an attempt to “help him across the finish line” and win the Democratic party nomination. The panel of judges include such liberal luminaries as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jesse Jackson and Oliver Stone and the winning ad will air nationally.

All of this leads me to wonder…
Will Barack himself have to “approve of this message”?
Will MoveOn’s move lead to a resurgence of interest in CCG campaigns?
Will the winning ad in fact be created by an adman, demonstrating once again that it’s not really consumer-generated at all, but Moonlighting Adman Created content (MACC)?
Will Hillary and McCain respond with some MACC of their own?
Will residents of Florida and Michigan be eligible to compete?

I don’t spend a lot of time in the cinema itself, it’s all payperview and downloaded crap these days, but I was with my parents and it was a choice between Atonement and… Wait! What about “Juno”? I happen to be a huge Michael Cera freak (www.clarkandmichael.com is mad hilarity) and so we went. Turns out the film’s fabulous - and finally a director, young Reitman, whose deft skill at creating coming AND serious turns, makes me sit up and go “I’ll tell everyone.”

However, there is a main character, Orange Tic Tacs, that actually threw me for a loop. Not since “My Big Fat Greek TV Movie” and the Michael Considine obsession with Windex, has a major American product placement (non-paid, I am told) been featured so “cool-y” in a major motion picture. And yet Ferrero USA, makers of the Tic Tac thang, have not done a thing to capitalize on Paul’s (Cera’s) nonstop fascination with the little orange one calorie treats (they actually use those words in the flick!).

I remember a billion years ago (94) when Quiz Show came out and Geritol was featured as a sponsor and it took six months and a few Oscar nods before that brand did anything to make hay with the news. And back then, social networking did not exist- not to mention the fact that Geritol was a sponsor of a SCANDALIZED show within the movie, so in fact it wasn’t too positive.

But heck, Ferrero, most known for Nutela and other badly-named old brands, has an opportunity to go for broke here with the one movie everyone is talking about that doesn’t star Johnny Depp.
They have their arms folded, I can tell, and it’s probably because “Juno” is about a 16-year-old pregnant kid — a brilliant and mature one, mind you — and they don’t want to get caught up in a debate about whether the candies support unwed young Mommies.

This is where the Punk mentality about making noise comes in handy. I can only hope that the Tic Tac makers out there somehow, somewhere, get their shit together and create a Tic Tac Orange subsite for people to share what’s orange about their lives — and even maybe create a little old chat room for lovers of this fine new American-made talk of the town. I want to see a Tic Tac character that, like that dancing baby of yore, appears in the oddest places throughout our Wide Web world.

If not, they are going to have orange mud all over their face. And in the DVD, you can best be sure a clever mini-doc on how Reitman and screenwriter Diago Cody (whatta name) “chose the Orange Tic Tac” …will be a wasted opportunity because by then we’ll have moved onto the next gimmick in our fast and fickle lives.

A study released by The Keller Fay Group, a New Brunswick, NJ, consultancy that features in Brandweek reveals that teens talk about brands twice as much as older folk do: 145 times a week on average according to the study. Like, er, wow!

The brands they mention are, not surprisingly, the ones they consume like iPod and Wii. Mostly, we imagine, when it comes to the iPod, conversations about how goddam irritating it is that whenever you log onto iTunes to update your iPod, you get innundated for days afterwards with spam about the latest new toons.

In fact, to support the assertion that a lot of what these young ‘uns are taking about is not all rosy, the study revealed that only 58% of the conversations about brands are positive, compared to 64% with adults. Hmm. So we guess not all brand chatter is good chatter.

We made a series of online videos a couple of months ago featuring two lovely ladies (Cleo and Anna) talking about Punk Marleting while removing their clothes. It appealed to our sense of humor and we thought it would be a fun way to deliver some marketing wisdom. We didn’t now if it would work or not, but the idea was in line with the tongue-in-cheek tone of the book, so thought it was worth a shot.

Well, the first video featuring Anna has just passed 150,000 views on YouTube, which is pretty amazing. Many of the viewers are probably adolscent boys, but even if 2% of them are potential business book buyers that is pretty respectable for an outlay of just a few hundred dollars. And number of views is still rising daily.