Well, according to AdAge, Dawn is all over this oil spill in the gulf that I wrote about yesterday. I will admit a big fail on my part for not looking harder for it. However, in all my Googling, searching press releases and news reports, I saw NO documentation of this happening. It seems the only notifications were on Facebook and Twitter, which neither page showed up while I was Googling.
So today I ask myself - what more can Dawn do so that people actually know about this?
1. Donate More. None of the notes on Facebook + Twitter talk about additional donations.
2. More Press releases: Facebook + Twitter are not mainstream, and apparently not optimized for search. Look at this quote, and tell me that doesn't deserve it's own amount of attention:
"Which made us wonder: After all these years, is scrubbing with Dawn really the most advanced method of oil-bird cleansing? "It's the best product to date that cleans the birds," Holcomb says. (And not just because they give his group donations!) "It almost seems silly, but it really is the right thing." (Source)
I'm sure that in the coming days the clean up will become more intense as the spill hits the shores, and I hope that Dawn gets in there, front and center, with the non-profits that they are supporting. I know they are probably trying hard not to turn this into a huge thing where they get backlash for capitalizing on a bad situation, but Tide Loads of Hope keeps coming to mind as someone who did it right.
As the oil spill in the gulf spreads and nears the coast, BP is becoming bigger and bigger news (with some coverage directly hammering them for their "green" campaign), and as much as they try to make things right, they are going to continue to look like the bad guy. If you ask me, this press around the oil spill presents a huge opportunity for Dawn to capitalize
Currently, Dawn is running these TV spots talking about how their product is used to clean animals from oil spills. it is heart felt, and they are donating up to $500,000, but you have to get online to register your purchase (kind of a lame step if you ask me):
Well hey Dawn, here is your chance (and quite frankly, I hope that you are already planning this). Practice what you preach and get down there to help clean up the spill. Show up with a big truck, in the Tide "Loads of Hope" style, and make sure that every animal gets a big Dawn scrub down.
The stars are aligned: lots of negative press about one company not living up to their brand = opportunity to be a hero and live up to your brand. Plus, cute animals are all the rage right now on the internets.
This is pretty cool, I just made a DIY QR code using Kaywa:
And here is another one:
And for anyone who doesn't have a reader for QR codes yet, I use ScanLife for my QR code reader, it supports iPhone and RIM (Blackberry). Check it out.
It was a big week in technology and social media. Here is what you need to know, in case, ya know, you were hanging out under a rock all week.
The Superbowl& The Morning After. It was the year of social at the Superbowl. Neilsen revealed that 14% of all Superbowl watchers logged onto the web during the game. This is up from 12% last year. While 2% is nothing to sneeze at for a notable increase, it wasn't the jump that I was expecting.
Facebook's new look book We all knew that it was coming, but Facebook finally rolled out it's redesign. Once again, it is more than just a reskin - it is a complete UX change. I get pretty accustomed to how my mouse moves on a website. I think most people do. I keep moving my mouse up to search in the upper right hand corner, and seriously not being able to find the search bar.
The biggest implication for marketers is that the boxes width is getting narrower (760-520px), but I believe this change is being rolled out gradually. While everyone was asking where that extra 240px is going, I'm wondering if they pages and profiles are going to start having the picture and that navigation up the whole time while you browse through the tabs.
Google Buzz...and the privacy battle. While far less anticipated than the Facebook rollout (we really only learned about Buzz a week or so before, but Facebook we've been anticipating for months), both hit our screens around the same time. Buzz has been getting a whole lot of push back on privacy. I've always believed that Google knew everything about me, and well, now it is becoming evident how much they know about how we connect with and how we connect with them. It makes some people upset.
I think Buzz will land on its feet, and be something big. I believe this will be a bit like Facebook's previous turmoil with privacy (e.g. the changes in default privacy settings or the fiasco with Beacon). Services will f-up the first time around, figure out how to fix their privacy settings, and then be happy and continue to use the service. It is just more open that people are used to.
New York Times gets cozy with Foursquare While the New York Times reports from the Olympics in Vancouver, they will be sharing all the hotspots through Foursquare. They already have lots of friends on the site, I hope that they spend a lot of time interacting with those friends, instead of just feeding them information. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Barbie got geeks Our favorite doll's latest career is as a computer scientist. This career was voted on by young consumers, and is a perfect exhibit of the "coolness" of geek. And probably, most importantly: You'll be hearing a whole lot more from the ladies of Yaybia now. It is like we are all Minnesotan bears, coming out of hibernation or something.
I thought that everyone seemed to be playing it a little safe in Superbowl Ad-land this year. I found most of the ads to be rather forgettable, but here are my thoughts on the rest.
The Tebow Spot: Like I said, Mrs. Tebow doesn't have a future in Hollywood. That being said, overall that was a lot of hype for something so lame. And the production of the whole thing...little too much Apple and E-Harmony in there. It seemed to rely very heavily on the URL call to action at the end. However, no search terms about that spot made it into the Google search trends or Bing xRank, which means that either everyone remembered that URL and went straight there, or the spot was pretty ineffective, relative to other spots (more about those below).
The Beer Advertising Monopoly: Anheuser-Busch is the ONLY beer advertiser in the Superbowl? And honestly have to say that I was a little disappointed in the overall beer ads. Beer ads used to literally run the Superbowl - what is up with them now? I think Budweiser is taking the horses a bit far now, and personally, of the beer ads, I only liked BudLight's T-Pain Spot:
The Car Spots (and lack there of): I really expected more form the American car makers, but the Dodge spot was good. I found most of the spots pretty lame for Hyundai and Kia, but I think VW did a great job making a classic Superbowl spot. They took an idea so simple that everyone, from age 6 to age 90 can understand, and turned it into a spot. SlugBug. I liked it.
The Google Spot: A first for the search engine, and it was definitely cute. Once again, points for being a very simple quick-get idea. I think most people can relate to it. But I find it interesting that this was loaded onto YouTube back in November, so obviously not made just for the Superbowl. Last-second media buy discount, or strategic move?
The Internets Since people kept talking about social media and the Superbowl, I expected stronger calls to action driving to websites, social media, and texting in spots, but really didn't see too much. However, some naturals prevailed in search as usual. Dockers seemed to take the cake for most search terms on Google, and Bud and GoDaddy appeared to win on Bing. Most notable is that there was no mention of the Focus on the Family spot, or those Intel spots that were hell-bent on getting you to go submit a moment to their microsite. That means if there is a load of traffic, it is coming from direct entry of the URL, or it just isn't popular enough to get on those trends lists. Once all the buzz around spots happens over the next few days, I think we'll have some more info to report on.
Overall trend = No Pants I couldn't really figure out why there were so many spots with guys not wearing pants? Dockers, Coke and Careebuilder.... Did anyone else find it funny that Careerbuilder.com's "Casual Friday" was played back-to-back with the Dockers "Men Without Pants" spot?
Funniest that I didn't talk about above: Snickers
Worst that barely deserve a mention: Sketchers and FloTV.
The Rest: If you missed them, want a chance to see them all again, or just need some commenting material, check them out in Hulu's sweet little widget, below:
What do you do when Gmail goes down? Mostly, I talked about it on Twitter, kept checking my Google reader for more articles, and chatted on iGoogle.
While going through my Reader, it seemed all my blogs are talking about it: AgencySpy, TechCrunch and Mashable... Mashable has some ideas for what to do while Gmail is down, but the funniest part of seeing their article when it popped up in my Google Reader was that they are supported by in-RSS-reader Google Ads.
FAIL: The ad reads: Buying another expensive email server made me go Google.
Well, I set my alarm for 10:45pm, stayed in, and watched the countdown on my screen in my living room with Erin and Libby. That would be the screen of my Facebook account, where thankfully I got to register my domain of www.facebook.com/carina
200,000 people registered in the first 3 minutes (go geeks, go!). 1 million in the first hour. What is the big deal? It isn't about this SEO thing people are talking about - it is all about branding.
Then, after I got super excited, and tweeted my Facebook URL, I realized how bad I was doing at branding myself. I am a connection mess:
@NICKNAME
facebook.com/FIRSTNAME
linkedin.com/in/FULLNAME
So I fail. Brands, do as I say, not as I do. BE CONSISTENT.
One hashtag that I saw started (I believe by Facebook employees) is #/isthenew@. Is it now just as essential to get your brand's /brandname as @brandname? Likely, if not even more. Facebook has been around longer, and gets more traffic than Twitter. That alone is enough to make most any brand want their own /brandname. Now, Facebook is not putting up with squatters, and brands could register ahead of time with their registered trademark number, starting early last week. BUT I want numbers on how many were actually fast enough to do that.
I went and checked a few popular brands:
www.facebook.com/coke redirects to www.facebook.com/coca-cola
www.facebook.com/pepsi redirects to www.facebook.com/refresheverything
(BUT, http://www.facebook.com/apple is a 404 and someone is squatting on http://www.facebook.com/appleinc)
So it appears there is some more special treatment for brands going on, but I am guessing those are the brands that paid for their vanity URLs back when they were only available when you shelled out some $$$ for a branded Facebook page.
The next rush comes on June 28th when anyone can register a unique domain for their profile or page, even if they signed up for facebook after 5/30 or if their page has less than 1000 fans. I recommend all brands get moving on this. Now. Get started now so that by June 28th you are ready.
Hey brands: your twitter ideas might suddenly not be cool anymore, thanks to Kutcher and Oprah.
The blogosphere is a good place to start judging what is coming next, and nobody seems too thrilled over the twitter exploding on Oprah thing. "Byebye Twitter..." "It's so over..." etc seem to be clogging it up. CNN sure benefited from it, but will other brands hurt from it, as Twitters core group of users turn away from the diluting? Have no fear, because you can look to see if a user was on Twitter before Oprah.
I think that before anyone jumps to conclusions over the Oprah appearance, we'll have to all give time for things to happen. So in that time, I'm going to put some questions out there:
1. Can this much publicity really hurt something that as good as everything thinks at it's core? 2. What does this do to the follower count? (already discussed by TechCrunch) 3. What does this mean for brands?
My initial thoughts: I think that now a "Twitter campaign idea" will quickly become measurable ONLY by followers as far as brands/clients are concerned. With all the "OMGWTF how do I get Social Media ROI?" I think brands are going to look to this and go "oh but THEY got A MILLION followers, why can't I have that many??"
I can't wait until the Compete.com analytics come out for April so we can all see what Oprah really did. Until then, lets talk about what could happen next. Are you using Twitter less now because it is suddenly mainstream?
Maybe. I mean I know that packaging is iconic, but what about when you open a box. What is actually on the inside. What products are so iconic? I think cereal is a good one. Think fast:
Cheerios.
But are there products so iconic, that they could make an ad with ONLY their product. And like I said - not packaging. No label. No marking on the product.
Behold: the most recent banner click registered to this IP address (it was static, there were NO other frames):
I was curious. I am a vegetarian, and I could have sworn that they are Whitecastle slyders. Not just any burgers. Whitecastle burgers. I have never eaten a Whitecastle slyder, let alone set foot in a Whitecastle, but I knew exactly what they were. It led me to:
So there you have it. A brand where the product is iconic enough to identify itself.
I am curious - what other products can you think of, that with no packaging or copy can identify themselves? How do we feel creatively about this ad?
UPDATE 2: skittles.com now links to the Skittles Facebook page. And, as a plus, the REAL skittles is in there answering questions and responding to posts on the wall by group members. A little more control, and a bit better landing page visual if you ask me.
Well, there is a lot of debate about the new Skittles.com floating around. I'll weigh in my 2-cents: good experiment, I'm impressed that Agency.com was able to sell the idea through, but how much does this target your consumer? And on another note, way to rip off Mondernista! (which came from Minneapolis' own Zeus Jones). Yes, it got you buzz, but will it be short lived? According to Thought Gadget, it is already seeing a fall off. I will say though, it is impressive to get as much buzz as they did, and most brands would kill for that.
On another note, we have heard that a certain amount of control needs to be surrendered when you are doing a social media experiment. However, generally speaking it is a good idea to snatch up all domain names, twitter names, etc that would allow anyone to pose as your brand online. Skittles missed the boat big time on that one, leaving: http://twitter.com/skittles_com wide open. Someone is spamming the heck out of skittles.com, re-tweeting every 30 seconds or so:
Ooops.
Overall I'm glad to see a brave client, but I've never been a fan of using someones creative idea, even for a different product.
UPDATE: the same spammer has www.twitter.com/ _skittles_com, and I think we can expect more as the day goes on. Look at this screenshot of the homepage:
UPDATE: we have taken down the other video for further editing, it will be back up on Monday!
Kittens Inspired by Kittens has racked up over 5 million views on the Internet in the last week. We got the sneak peak of the upcoming videos that she'll be making!
And yes, she is really that adorable and energetic in real life!
It is official. Microsoft, who couldn't help but continue to rip off the already successful Apple branding (that we've already talked about here), has decided to open retail stores. After reading a lot of information on my blogs about it, I found the Microsoft Press Release about the guy who is in charge of the whole deal.
While people have been citing that he comes from DreamWorks (relatively cool, hip company), it turns out that he has only been there since 2007, a stint that follows 25 years at WalMart.
Here is the sentence from the press release:
"Before joining DreamWorks Animation in 2007, Porter spent 25 years at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in roles of increasing responsibility and seniority in store operations, merchandising and information technology. In his last role at Wal-Mart, Porter was vice president and general merchandise manager of Entertainment, where he served as a strategic point of influence throughout the Wal-Mart business."
Now, what is interesting about this, is that thinking back through WalMart history, if he left in 2007, he missed both the iPhone-in-Walmart launch (some good Apple design mixed in there) and more importantly, the large electronics section redesign that occurred in 2008.
So what part of WalMart merchandising did this chap contribute to? I remember lots of big yellow smiley faces, and rolling back prices.
What is he going to be bringing to the Microsoft stores again? Ignoring all the other differences between Apple and potential microsoft stores (ya know, that whole software vs. hardware thing -- whose computers are going go live in the store), I think we can expect another sorry following to an Apple initiative.
Riding in the car this morning, we heard the radio announcer mention that NBC will not allow PETA's new ad to run on the superbowl. My roommate asked me "why they would submit an ad if they knew it was going to get banned? Don't they know enough to be able to tell?" Well, same reason they do it every time, great PR, sex sells, and you save $3million, but still get a ridiculous amount of PR impressions without paying as cent.
This isn't the first time that PETA has done this, but checking out their new site you can see just how many times they have been "Too Hot For TV." In fact, on YouTube, you even need to be "of age" to view the video. Score 1 point for PETA.
With 31,000 views on YouTube in 1 day, and many major news announcements, I'd say they've done a good job. Sex sells, and people LOVE banned content.
This year (as it has been for the past few years) everyone is talking about how digital plays into Superbowl spots. Well, it will be very interesting to see how well a banned Superbowl spot does online vs. one that ran. Expect Yaybia to investigate post-Superbowl and post a follow up.
In the meantime, lets do an "over-under." Do you think: A) PETA will get more online views than any Superbowl spot that ran, or do you think B) The ones that run will do better. Leave a guess and a reason in your comment!
I love it when commercials can still make me absolutely crack up. For example, this commercial for National Car Rental makes me laugh every single time.
However, they are hard to find. I previously have discussed some other spots that I love right now. Yesterday, on Creativity, I found some more. And to be sure to give the whole campaign some kudos, I'll post all 4 of these. So simple, I love them.
It is that time of year where the diamond companies try to get their name out for all the men in the world to come do their last minute "i have no idea what to get her but i heard of that one jewelry place so maybe i'll go look there" shopping. Kay Jewelers is sponsoring just about every sporting event on television right now (which means the beginning of NCAA basketball, and more importantly, the beginning of Bowl Season). Jared is running the "he went to Jared!!!" spots, and Kay is running that deaf girl one...yikes. They all seem to appeal to the guys "emotional" side (or the girls, so that she will drop hints). But lets be completely serious here, while your guy might be head over heels in love with you, he probably won't let his soft side show while watching the Kay Jewelers commercial with the guys during Bowl week. For that, there are these little pieces of genius. They seem to go straight to the heart of a man.
Plain and simple. Although it has been running for a while, I still think that they do the job better than any other diamond/jewelry commercial out there.
You might have noticed some love for Apple ads, and some dislike for Microsoft's new "I'm a PC" campaign, in particular the user generated content part of their campaign. Well just when you thought it was all over, I'm checking out Slashdot this morning (ok ok I know that admitting I read that probably makes me the geekiest Yaybia-er out there) but look what I find:
Yep, you read that right. Linux, the never fighting, rarely advertising brand has jumped on that same old user generated content bandwagon. I understand this is an easy out for a small budget, but REALLY...I would expect better from you Linux.
My next question is, how is this going to work? In my experience (4 years of taking geek-packed math and computer science at a major university) most of the people who are proudly using Linux are pretty camera shy. Or maybe I'm just wrongly judging, but seeing as though they left a 3 seat perimeter in lecture halls between them and any (gasp!) female in class, I'm assuming none of them are going to be fighting for the spotlight any time soon. So I'm curious to see how this pans out. Are the proud Linux users going to come out of the woodwork? Take over the I'm a PC users? Or is everyone going to yawn because another company is jumping on the "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" bandwagon started by Apple?
Fail Monday strikes again, but on the Northwest Airlines website (I just had quite the epic trip from Michigan to Minneapolis this morning, but that is besides the point).
Not so bad, unless you look at what they title the page. Usually pages like this are titled something like "sorry, we had an error" but this is just called "Tech Failure Page." I think that is a pretty negative title for a 404.
How is this related to advertising? I view a corporate site as part of the company - it is meant to act as a way to engage. And think about the careful language of customer service representatives... it is a bit different than this.
Gap has recently expanded their product line from jeans and argyle sweater vests to include argyle bikes! Now you can match your bike to your outfit (but right now it is only available in blue argyle).
I want to know what you guys think of this. While I am generally a fan of product line expansion, I think that Gap patters and designs fit great on fabric, and I'm not so sure about bikes.
Animated furry friends still work (I mean those puppy's on the puppy cam could sell me anything!) Here is a great example of a friendly Beaver from our friends down under:
A real thank you from the girls at Yaybia, for keeping our Yaybia's...well, Yaybia's.
The writers of Yaybia are the most intelligent, creative, and passionate young women in Minneapolis advertising. Yaybia is our thoughts, frustrations, musings, questions, and opinions about our industry.
DISCLAIMER: Said opinions are OURS, not those of the companies we work for. We're not representing those companies, or their clients, or anyone but ourselves. Interested in contacting one or all of us? Yaybia [at] gmail [dot] com. <3
