MORE THAN ADVERTISING

Content Marketing = Brand New Marketing?

A great presentation about Content Marketing. I love the quote from Cory Doctorow on slide 7:

“Content isn´t king. Conversation is king.
Content is just something o talk about.”

And I totally agree with it. I always wrote that “it´s all about good content” and “content is king” but it is more than that. It is really about these conversation you start with your content. Because it only start to spread when people start to talk about it. And with every blogpost, every comment and every link you will reach more people.

So beside putting money and energy in creating good content we also have to stimulate and manage these conversations online and become a vital part of it.

Just found this interesting post about EA´s latest Tiger Woods Spot on Jaffe Jucie.

Levinator25 a private gamer posted a video about a special Tiger Woods 08 feature, the “Jesus shot” on youtube.

Here is the video:

Now EA responded for the launch of Tiger Woods 09 directly to Levinator25 with their own viral video:

I think EA did a great job by reacting to UGC that way. The only problem is that it took them about 11 months to respond to Levinator25 and that´s way to long for a “real” dialogue.
Sure it takes some time to shoot such a spot with a testimonial like Tiger Woods and you need some marketing budget for it, but with everyday that passes you loose momentum and it doesn´t feel like a real response or a conversation for the youtube community. And to be a part of this conversation with your customers is an great asset for any brand and any product.

One of the biggest challenges will be to build new structures between the company, their product and the agency to enable a real dialogue so they can react quicker to what´s going on online and respond to it.

Instead of an huge ad campaign for their pan-European festival activities Converse launched a branded online music community. A place where people can get in touch and share their passion about music.

The website was created by Perfect Fools’ recently-opened Amsterdam office, and they did a great job on it.

Users can create their own personal festival space going online, add friends and decide on the bands they want to see. They can also organize everything on the platform, from counting down to the event, planning their itinerary to sharing their photos, movies and lifestyle experiences with their mates.

“The last thing Converse needs is advertising, or a promise re-wrapped. We do know that Converse has fans, we do know that music has fans and we do know that festivals are a great collective experience. Anticipation and planning is huge part of it, so we worked with Converse to create a tool useful to the groups of festivals goers and something that unites the Converse music activity across borders…”
says Perfect Fools partner and Creative director Mark Chalmers.

This tool is really relevant to their customers but it also for Converse. Now they have a growing database of music fans with information about their event, band and artist preferences. It also means that the users are actively engaged with the Converse brand over an extended period of time, from planning stages, through to the festival, and the post-festival sharing of photos and experiences.

“Perfect Fools has unified much of our music connections through ConverseFestivals.com and created value by making a useful, cool communications tool for music fans. We have extended the anticipation, enjoyment and lifetime of each festival.”

Neil Stevens, EMEA brand development director for Converse

Conversefestivals.com will do way more for the brand than any 30 sec spot, because it actually ads value to their customers life. And that´s the only way to engage with them…be relevant!

VIA utalkmarketing.com and Contagious

Ok the title might sound a bit boring, but this is actually the best presentation about Youtube and what´s going on in this digital world I´ve ever seen!!! Take some time to watch it and grab your sketchbook to take notes…you will need it.
It is absolutely fascinating what Michael Wesch and his students are doing in this field of “Digital Ethnography” at the Kansas Sate University – I hope that his studies will change the way we think and interact with this medium.

Via JVM Beweguingsmelder

Who says that advertising agency´s can only create 30 Sec. spots? Mother is breaking down the borders between advertising and content, they produced a full-length feature film as a covert advertising campaign for their client Eurostar.

What´s interesting about it, Mother has pitched the concept to make short films for Eurostars TV account and lost. But the idea survived and it became a big movie project funded by the company.

The film was directed by Shane Meadows (This is England) and written by a couple of guys at Mother. It looks nothing like an advert as we understand it, and one reason for this is that the creatives had the freedom to work.

“The contract said that if Shane was asked to put in a smiling train driver, or had any other interference, he would take his name off the project,” says producer Barnaby Spurrie

(…a contract, every creative dreams of!)

Here is the trailer:

And there are some good arguments to do this kind of “content marketing” instead of a product placement or a tv spot:

“It cost less than the average 30-second spot to make, is expected to be seen by millions without any media buy and tests as having a positive ROI in terms of prompting people to book train trips” Ad Adg

A great project that proofs: good content reaches the people.
And by the way you can win some movie awards for your work too – not a bad deal for an advertising agency and a transportation company.

@ Birgit, thx for the link

ElectroCity is a new online computer game that lets players manage their own virtual towns and cities. It’s great fun to play and also teaches players all about energy, sustainability and environmental management in New Zealand.

“Our goal is not to provide students with a sophisticated understanding of the controversies in the various energy debates. Rather, our goal is to spark an interest and lay an unbiased foundation for later learning.”

A great idea for an energy company, especially in these days when everybody talks about rising cost for electricity and environmental changes.

Via Naked Blog

This beautiful picture is not taken by a NASA satellite or a space ship, it was taken by a normal Pentax k10d camera at over 104,000 ft. (you can find more pictures on flickr)

The camera was attached to a sounding balloon in a small box that primarily protects the camera on impact when it hit the ground.

It was a experiment by Oklahoma State University to measure cosmic radiation with a new sensor.
But what is far more interesting than that, it is probably the best advertising campaign for a digital camera I´ve ever seen.

I mean this is the best proof for the quality of the product and everybody is talking enthusiastically about the pictures, the camera and the brand throughout the web.
Like in the Pentax Forum.

“The results are a testament to the quality and ruggedness of the Pentax gear. The camera was exposed to the harshness of the space environment (essentially a vacuum, and below -60F temperatures) and it never missed a beat.”

PentaxPoke

Or this one:

I think this is incredible, and no doubt speaks volumes about the quality not just IQ of pentax cameras and lenses. I am truly impressed, and as mentioned by someone else I also don’t get that way too often. beautiful photos, just stunning. and to know they were taken with a pentax actually makes me very happy. I’m not a ‘fan boy’ but seeing photos like this really does cement my like, joy, and trust in pentax cameras for my true passion. thumbs up to you for all your hard work and willingness to share it with us.

séamuis

This is great buzz for Pentax and it will definitely help to sell the camera. Because everybody who wants to buy one will search the web for test-results and postings from other users, and they will find these pictures and quotes that will help them to make their purchase decision.

These quotes are way more authentic and influencing than any magazine ad or any TV spot.

I hope that Pentax will sponsor this project and use the content for PR or advertising, because it`s really a great story to tell.

via WERBEBLOGGER

I´ll be in Berlin for a few days. So if there is anybody around who want´s to catch up and grab a cup of coffee, just send me an email. Looking forward to some interesting chats.

Meanwhile I won´t have time to update the Blog regularly. But I´ll be back from Berlin with a lot of new ideas and interesting stuff to write about.