In digital, you can do almost anything. Don't.

There are limitless opportunities in the digital world. From creating a new Facebook experience to improving organic search rankings, developing an Android application to testing out the latest social game theories, for many brands - anything is possible.

In the 'old days' (i.e. 2 years ago), organisations with separate teams would create, test and trial new tactics across the digital space. If you think about the rise of the web in the late 90's, this started with experimenting with websites (which were mostly recreations of corporate brochures) and rapidly grew into microsites, bespoke email marketing programs and display banners for little campaigns. Then came Search, the social web and now a plethora of new options - location-based services, payment solutions, gaming partnerships, the works.

For marketers, the digital world isn't getting better with time - it's becoming more confusing. Right when you start to understand microsites (and why not to create them), the next 'hot' trend emerges. Once you do a well-thought out test, another smarter, faster, cheaper and better technology has emerged.

Part of this confusion is because of the pace of innovation. Things improve, fast. Brands like Google and Facebook evolve and give us better opportunities to engage a select group of people. Formats change. Pages get updated. And we have to adapt.

But the other part of the confusion is because of us. Every agency, specialist and consultant can talk about a 'forgotten' area of the digital space. Doing a great job with campaign creative but not thinking about search strategy? Implemented conversation monitoring but not game theory? Created a Facebook page but not a YouTube channel? And on.

There is always something more. Always a new trend to chase. But the basics are what matter first. And, most often, they are overlooked. More and more, I think we need to focus on the fundamentals of digital. The building blocks of a user experience along the journey we are hoping to take them on.

How to people find your experience? Why would they spend more than 2 seconds there and not hit the back button or close the tab? What content would they want to share? Why would they opt-in?

Digital planning is like being an architect. Someone who knows the basics of all the tools required to create something great. Someone who puts together a strong foundation, based on a blueprint, that specific experts can build from over time.

Materials change. Techniques come and go. Technology evolves.

But before you get caught up with the most recent Mashable post, make sure the fundamentals are in place.

This is what great advertising looks like

I know I'm about 4 months behind on this campaign but it just started airing in the UK (I think). Disney, inspired by a great video (posted below), has created a series of TV spots that showcase kids being told by their parents that they are going to Disney Land (World / Paris, etc). The campaign, called Let the Memories Begin, features real families and their home footage of their Disney experience.

What I love about this campaign is that it's built off a great, simple insight: if you've been to Disney World, you have a great memory of it. And if you're a parent, there is no better way to feel like the best Dad in the world than by taking your kids to Disney.

The campaign seems to have started with a video on YouTube (below):

I'd bet that the second the client / agency saw this video, they knew they had a campaign. It would have been easy to simply air this spot (which they did), but they also made a YouTube channel the heart of the campaign.

The channel itself is very low key but the idea is simple: upload your Disney memories and kid reactions and they could be in the next spot.

I don't have kids but I went to Disney as one and hadn't thought about it in a long time until I watched this spot:

Yes, it's sentimental. Yes, it's cheesy. And yes, it doesn't push the digital envelope with innovative ways to engage an audience. But if you see this and you've been to Disney and have kids, you're thinking about going there. I guarantee it.

Remove Friction, Add Value

Recently I read a great piece in GQ called The Viral Me by Devon Freeman. The article takes a look at a non-digital obsessed journalists quest into social media - from Facebook to Blippy, Twitter to Quora - it's a great look at what drives people to use these services. More importantly, it looks at the powerful VC's and incubators who take ideas from smart, young, enterpenuers and turn them into massive companies.

Brian Pokorny, an angel-investor, is interviewed in the later part of the article and discusses how he evaluates 'social' companies. The core of his thinking is about services that reduce 'Friction' to as low as possible (in other words, make the service as easy to use as possible and it will scale quickly - resulting in viral growh and potentially major revenues). Freeman describes it as:

'Friction is what you don't want. Friction is what keeps people from signing up for your site or downloading your app. Because it's too expensive, because it's too embarrassing, because it's too difficult, because it's difficult at all. The Internet has been working to reduce friction. To make everything easier to use, easier to sign up for, easier to navigate, cheap, free, freer than free. In a perfect world, there'd be friction if someone didn't sign up for your thingy. Again, FB has it right: It's frictive to not have an FB account; just ask anyone who has to explain six times a day why he doesn't have one.'

When you think about different types of friction on the web, there are many - it takes time to register a profile, to validate an email address, to go through steps. But beyond that, it takes time to think of a photo to upload to Facebook or even a 140 character Tweet to write. That seems almost insane (that a Tweet would be considered Friction) but it is. That's why sites like DailyBooth are on the rise (more on this below).

When you think about this idea, it makes complete sense. The more friction (or steps) that you make me go through, the less chance you have of making me complete the journey. When you apply this to a site journey or Facebook application, you quickly see that every click results in a drop off - somewhere between 10-20% depending on the user ask. Applied to 'rich' experiences that ask the users to click 8-12 times and you've got a fraction of the people who made it to the landing page in the first place (which is a fraction of those who you might have been running ads against). This friction counts and hurts many of the brand experiences out there.

The second theory of Brian's is a perfect additon to Friction - with any experience, the user must get more out of it than they put in. So simple.

But think about it applied to photo-upload contests (as one, frequently-used example). We ask users to go through the app, register, think of a photo that applies to the theme of the contest, upload and then beg for votes. If they're lucky, they will look at the other photo's that users have uploaded and be entertained. But in reality, they won't. They'll just canvass votes or - more commonly - forget about the experience.

Reducing friction and adding value are buzzwords of the digital world. But just because everyone talks about them doesn't mean that they are actually being applied to experiences.

As an aside, I've started using a few sites mentioned in the article, specifically:

• Dailybooth: One of the easiest experiences I've had. Create a profile, take a picture of yourself. Upload. People comment. Repeat. Hugely popular among mobile users. It's like a mix of Flickr and Twitter but easier to use than both.
• Blippy: It was scary to give my iTunes password, Gmail and Credit Details, but I'm intersted to see how live, social tracking of my purchases changes my behaviour. I figure I'll either delete the account in a few days or be obsessed for the year.

Test them out if you've got a sec.

Oh the irony

Want to go to the 'cutting edge of tech innovation?' Head to CES. Here's something interesting though. Among the LG's, Samsung's, RIM's and Motorola's, you'll find the gaming section. And in the gaming section, you'll find this:

That's right. A gaming chair. Also known as a 'stay single' chair. Functions include:

• 2 CD racks (seriously?)
• 2 can holders (for your pops most likely as 12 year olds can rarely find someone to buy beer)
• Guitar Hero Guitar Strap on the back
• Game pouch
• Various pouches to store additional items (HDMI cables, why not?! Drumsticks? Of Course?!)

CES has thousands of people walk though it. You play with every gadget imaginable. Things that haven't hit the market and won't for months. But any vendor can get into CES - even ones who sew pockets to an Ikea chair and fill them with XBox games. Amazing.

11 Stats from CES

Remember all the posts I promised about CES right when I got there? I know, I lied. I'm sorry. Just a whirlwind. Here, though, are a few stats that I heard at the various sessions and booths at the conference (sorry, can't remember the names of most people):

• Samsung's Application Store has over 105 million downloads (from VP Innovation at Samsung on a panel) This shocked me. With the emergence of Smart TV's, the proliferation of applications will continue to grow.
• Habbo Hotel has 9 million active monthly teens on the site and over 200 million registered characters (Head of Habbo New Biz)
• GameStop, the largest bricks and mortar game retailer in the world, CEO said that 50% of their game revenue in 2010 was for PS2 games - a system that hasn't been made in several years (a reminder for all of us on the innovation curve that it takes a lot of time for the early majority to adopt new technologies)
• Netflix video streaming accounts for 20% of all streaming in the US (CNet)
• The average American TV viewer watches over 34 hours of TV a week (Zander, CBS)
• To that end, the average US TV viewer spends over 150 hours a month watching TV and only 3 hours a month on online video (Mindshare)
• There are over 60 million PlayStation Network users (Sony)
• Production costs for a Hollywood-quality TV drama are approximately $2 million per hour episode (Zander, CBS speaking about TV quality vs. web)
• 98% of all rich media ads are created in Flash (Adobe)
• 80 different tablets were 'launched' at CES (launched in quotations as only a small percentage of these will actually make it to the market)
• iTunes is the 2nd most popular application on Windows (unverified)

And one of my favourite quotes from the show from a guy in the audience at one of the sessions:

'There is no such thing as an unassailable technology position. The giants fall. Winners never stay.'

Interactive Display

Loving this. So simple but cool. Nice to see someone use smart technology in a way that is easy for people to enjoy and doesn't ask them to change their behaviour!

Thanks to Alix for the link.

Interactive Display Window Concept from Gustaf Engström on Vimeo.

CES - Pre Show

Happy New Year everyone.

I'm currently in Vegas attending CES 2011. The early reviews from the media day yesterday have all focused on convergence of technologies - from your TV to your car, everything will continue to be connected for the future. It seems like we've been hearing about convergence for a long time now and I'm interested to see how brands continue the story during the show.

Major areas that I've already noticed gaining coverage include:

1. 3D everything - every brand has launched something that is 3D, whether its a TV, camcorder or camera. This continues to be a major focus area for the show and all manufacturers are battling for the best, thinnest, clearest and most advanced 3D experience. While I think that 3D from a tech standpoint is cool, it's the content providers who need to start creating in the new tech. Only then will 3D become mass (and many people have a huge issue with the glasses, it seems)

2. Internet TV - from Google TV to Sony to LG, truly web-enabled TV's will become the standard this year. For me, the multitasking aspect of the experience will be critical. I currently watch TV with a iPad and laptop going in the living room. I need multiple screens and wouldn't ant one experience (ie. Watching Inception) to be hurt by another (Twitter notification in the screen).

3. Mobile - again, no surprise. 4G is getting a lot of press and so are the plethora of new tablets that are launching. This space is the most interesting to me because the mobile is by far the most important device that most people will have.

If you'd like me to check out any specific products or brands while I'm here or want me to ask any questions, please leave any in the comment section.

In any event, it should be an interesting show and I'll try to post regular updates.

Possibility is easy, Execution isn't

Over the last few weeks, I've read Kevin Kelly's masterpiece, What Technology Wants. If you are at all interested in technology, the future, our past and where everything could be going, you've got to read this work. It's filled with enough insight to warrant a new blog (which I'm thinking about doing) but for now, I wanted to focus on one thought in it.

One of the early chapters deals with the idea that innovation is inevitable - there are examples throughout history that the same discoveries - the lightbulb, the camera, the telephone - were discovered independently by multiple inventors in the same time period. During this chapter, Kelly shows the Inverted Pyramid of Invention which polymath and serial inventor Danny Hillis describes in detail:

"There might be tens of thousands of people who conceive the possibility of the same invention at the same time. But less than one in ten of them imagines how it might be done. OF these who see how to do it, only one in ten will actually think through the practical details and specific solutions. Of these, only one in ten will actually get the design to work for very long. And finally, usually only one of all those many thousands with the idea will get the invention to stick in the culture."

When I read this example, I couldn't help but think of the agency creative process - starting with high level concepts (anything is possible!), selling the high level idea and then starting to work through the core details (well, not anything...), working through feedback towards a prototype (is this even doable?), banging out a half-functioning execution (at least we got it done!), launching and hoping that a mass of people will accept it (..they didn't, but it's not our fault!). And restarting the process again.

Those in digital know that execution is just as important as the creative concept itself. Anyone can think of the possibility of an aggregated content site that magically tailors content to any users desires without them asking anything, but few - other than Google - can actually build, execute and launch it.

More and more, a focus on finding the people who can generate an idea of how it works, outline the details required, build a prototype and enable adoption has become more critical.

Because most agencies are great at the 'Thought of Possibility'. We are creative, at the highest level, and can imagine great experiences. But moving down one level (let alone four) is a massive challenge - and one that if we don't answer, will leave us confined to the corners of a pub where we host nightly 'what if we did this?' conversations that quickly lead nowhere.

This isn't to suggest that creativity is not important. To quote Kelly in a later (unrelated but still relevant) passage:

'And because we cannot image it [a life without technology], it will never happen, because nothing has ever been created without being imagined first.'

Imagination is vital. It creates possibilities and ideas. But a possibility is not a prototype.

What do you think? How could we get better at taking a great possibility and distilling it through the Pyramid of Invention?

The Power of Imprinting: 80,300 Minutes

A few weeks ago, I finished Dan Ariely's excellent book Predictibly Irrational. A number of ideas and posts will come from this great book but one that jumped out at me was the idea of imprinting.

The wikipedia definition of imprinting is as follows:

'Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behaviour. It was first used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some stimulus, which is therefore said to be "imprinted" onto the subject.'

The way that Ariely describes this is through a very simple example - going to Starbucks for the first time.

For many people (myself included), going to Starbucks 4-6 times a week is a routine. But why is this the case?

To be honest, I don't remember the first time I went into a Starbucks and I don't remember what I ordered. But I do know that when I first when into the coffee shop, my rational thought pattern when something like this:

A. I'm thirsty for a coffee (or something)
B. This place is right on the corner
C. I know people who love it here
D. I'll try it out even though it seems over priced
E. If I don't like it, I'll stop going.

Trying out Starbucks - at that moment - wasn't a big deal to me. It was a one-off. But immediately after that experience, I now had an imprinted version of Starbucks (an expectation) that then led to a routine that has cost me thousands of dollars and lasted for year over 8 years. It was an experience that made me feel good (warm cup/good taste), comfortable (quick break before the day really starts) and prepared for success (start the day well and it will be a good one). That first experience led to a chain of events that not only changed my daily behavior (from no coffee each morning to 'must have or else')

Extend this concept to the web. The first time I created a Facebook profile I viewed it as a test. A friend of mine was raving about the site and said that I needed to try it. After resisting for a few weeks I thought, 'I'll give it a shot for an hour or two'. That was on December 15th, 2006 (the first day when I uploaded a profile picture).

It's been almost 4 years since then and I can't remember a day where I haven't checked the site - either for work or personal - on my computer or mobile. Like Starbucks, I start my day with it - run through brand pages I'm a part of and, of course, check through the News Feed to see what my 590 friends have been up to.

The average user spends about 55 minutes on the site based on recent Facebook data. Consider that number in relation to the 1,460 days I've spent since I registered my profile. Some days I'll only spend a few minutes, others (due to work) I might spend a few hours. But let's take 55 minutes as the average and multiply it across 4 years.

80,300 minutes. Looking at that staggering number another way, that's over 55 days solid on Facebook since I joined (3.8% of my time over the last four years has been dedicated to creeping photo's and updating streams on Facebook).

Whether or not it's been 'worth it' is a topic for another post but the important thing, for me, is going back to December 15th, 2006. Opening the computer, searching for Facebook and starting a profile in less than a minute.

Just like Starbucks, that first experience led to a fundamental change in my behaviour - and something that took less than a minute to start, has taken over 55 days of my time since.

The next time you think about 'just trying something' once, remember that it might not be easy to stop after that first experience has been imprinted on your mind.

Pure Advertising from Dior

Being a guy who lives for digital advertising, I've found myself in rooms wishing that big TV budgets were being spent on other things - strong social campaigns, digital out of home ideas that create a big impact, excellent (long term) site experiences that can be built on over time - you know, the usual list of stuff.

Sometimes when I watch a TV spot or campaign, I wonder how much it cost and how that money could have been spent elsewhere. The dollars (or pounds) get added up in my head and I (mostly foolishly) wonder what the ROI on a specific spot would be.

I've got to say, though, that in the world of digital and clients who want less TV and more platforms, tests and experiences, perfume advertising remains one of the purist in terms of old-school thinking: big, expensive films that focus on weird, emotional little vinnietes and stories. Most leave the viewer with a 'WTF?' expression on their face.

In the UK during the holiday's, literally every break contains 2-3 30 second spots featuring international stars. The one that really caught me is for Dior featuring Jude Law. After some searching, I found out that the 30 was actually a cut-down from a 4-minute film that was directed by Guy Richie. It's something out of the mid-80's; extremely well-shot, weird, great track (Muse) and some shots that you don't forget. Check it out here:



I've watched it 3 times and I still can't say whether I even like it. It is so over the top, so expensive, so ridiculous that it's almost, well, awesome. I've never considered buying a perfume product before but if it makes me feel half as good as Jude Law driving at 5am through the streets of Paris, I might need to get to the nearest John Lewis as soon as possible.

Could I have bought this as a client? I don't know. Especially considering the price was probably well over 3 million pounds to get this crew together for a few days. But sometimes we have to remember where this industry came from - emotional, strange, short ideas that make you notice and consider a product you'd never heard of before.

What do you think? Brutal or great?

CBS Chris Henry Thanksgiving Story

Because I'm now over in London, I pretty much miss the traditional American Thanksgiving Thursday that features 3 NFL games. One of my favorite parts of that day is the stories that get told about the NFL teams, the broadcaster crews and the people who are most interested in the game.

The top story - by far - that day was one that CBS put together about Chris Henry. Henry, only 26, passed away last year during the season and his team, the Cincinnati Bengals, as well as the NFL was struck by the tragedy for the remainder of the season.

CBS put together a story about Henry's mother and the legacy that he's left behind. If you don't tear up while watching this, there's something wrong with you:



What I love about this piece isn't just that it's a great story - it's that it is told in a superb way. Although follows a typical narrative, it's incredibly personal and uses the medium perfectly. It is also, to me, the definition of great content: the minute after you see it, you can't help but share it.

Apps - In Our Own Words

I recently came across a great script that the developer of Instapaper wrote in his spare time that highlights some great insights about how we rate apps. The script was designed to crawl through the US Apple App store for the top 100 applications for every category and compile the most common words from the 1-star and 5-star reviews.

Here is the list of the most common reviews from the 5-star group:

• Awesome, worth, thanks, amazing, simple, perfect, price, everything, ever, must, ipod, before, found, store, never, recommend, done, take, always, touch
  

And here is the list from the 1-star group:

• Waste, money, crashes, tried, useless, nothing, paid, open, deleted, downloaded, didn't, says, stupid, anything, actually, account, bought, apple, already

What jumped out at me when I first read this list was that positive reviews really confirmed a lot of the terms that you commonly associate with strong digital experiences - simple, awesome, always, perfect. Applications that are associated with those words have been carefully crafted and thought through. They haven't been rushed to market and they aren't just extensions of something that already exists - they are unique to the device, to the system and to the expectations of the user.

On the flip side, apps that got the worst reviews were summarized in the language of disappointment - waste, useless, stupid, crashes.

Breaking through in the application market is just as (if not more) difficult as doing so on a site. When I consider my own application usage on my iPad / iPhone, if the application isn't awesome or simple within the first five minutes, I'm done. Research into application usage reflects that I'm not alone. Most apps are deleted within the first 30 days of their download. People try them, get bored, and move on.

The interesting insight about applications, though, is that we can rate all of them in the same place where they are downloaded. Imagine if the same was possible for every brand website that's ever existed? I suspect we'd see a lot of the same words associated to the 1-star reviews that we get on apps. If only we had a place to put them.

YouTube Ad of the Year - Embrace Life

Many of you have probably already seen this spot before, but it has just won a new award from YouTube - Ad of the Year. As the winner, YouTube provides the brand with a one-day takeover of the site to 'air' the spot (with about $75K US). Check out the spot here and be sure to let us know what you think of the work.

The Elephant in the Room

The promise of organic growth as a part of any social media initiative is something that's very appealing. The simple belief that 'if you build it, they will come' is an idea that has been around long before the dawn of social media. In fact, early websites followed this logic: spend enough on something special, and people will find their way to it. Create something - no matter how good - and most people will at least take a second to check it out (even though they might never return).

Over the last few years, brands, agencies and marketers have learned the hard way. The number of orphan Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels and Blogs speaks volumes about the failed strategies and focus that many have had over the years. Despite the fact that the pages were likely started with good intentions, something about them didn't seem to connect - or so we thought. Months after they didn't acheive a following, they'd be evaluated (mostly on the 'quality' of the content) and new ideas would be hatched.

But here is the problem. It's just simply about the content of the page or the 'engagement strategy'. It's not just about the apps, promotions and customer service outlets.

It's about this - do people actually know it exists?

Or more to the point - did you save any investment for, you know, advertising?

It's easy in the above-the-line world. We have reference points. Spend 80-90% of your budget on buying the media and the rest of it on producing it. Getting airtime on top TV networks is expensive. Shooting spots from a production standpoint are expensive as well, but minimal in comparrision to the actual cost of airing them.

And here lies the digital issue. Getting your ideas published doesn't really cost anything. If you want to launch a page, a blog or a site quickly, you can get it up in an hour or two. As the site becomes more complex and the requirements get larger, costs go up. But again, actually getting a domain and putting it out on the world-wide-web isn't an expensive process - especially when you compare launching that to TV spot.

Media, as a result, becomes an after-thought. Contact the 'hyper-influencers'. Do some outreach. The advices mounts - and it's not wrong, it's just missing a critical component - media.

Believe me, I love social and I'm a big advocate of earned media. But countless studies have shown that paid media leads to a greater share of earned. That the idea of something just 'going viral' without a smart seeding strategy or big TV buy just isn't accurate anymore - there is just to much content out there.

Sure, some of it gets through and we see it (and then share it). But most of the stuff that's not supported in some way, goes nowhere.

The next time you're discussing your social initiative, site or application, just remember that if you do end up actually building it, they won't come unless they know about it

The Future of News...

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about how the shift in the newspaper industry also mimics the shift in the traditional ad industry. There is a long post brewing on this topic in the coming weeks but to help show you what inspired it, I wanted to link to this article by James Fallows called How To Save The News.

If you work in a creative industry, especially media, this is a must-read. It's a good look at how Google is trying to help the industry that it up-ended and keep news alive (in some form). It's longer than most content you'd read on the web but it's worth it and I think you'll find it has some excellent reference points to anyone working at an ad agency.

More to come...

Is this the Worst Commercial of All-Time?

I think that this commercial, which is on-air literally every break during NFL Sunday on Sky, may be the worst TV spot ever made. If anyone knows anything about this spot - the Agency, the Creatives, the Production Company - please let me know so we can publicly shame them.



Don't think this is the worst? Let's get this conversation going. Send some links in the comments and we'll get a top 5 worst-all time list made up.

Believe in what you do

You've got to hand it to Steve Jobs - he believes in everything that Apple makes and he knows, exactly, what he wants his company to be. He designs in a closed way - his rules, his products. He doesn't crowdsource his ideas or his campaigns and I highly doubt that he listening to conversations in the space to try and guess what people want from him.

He knows. And he's passionate.

Yesterday, on a quarterly call with investors, he went on a 5 minute rant about why Apple is the OS of choice vs. Android. I've got to say that I love the passion here and that he makes a ton of great points. While I still believe that their is validity in the 'open vs. closed' argument, you cannot argue for a second that Apple makes products that just work. No trouble. No problems.

Here is the rant:



Passion. Conviction. Vision. Would you defend what you to this extent?

Storify: The Future of Content Curation

Over the last few months, I've been exploring a number of content curation services. Many are in the early Alpha stages and it's been tough to get access but one that I've been really impressed with so far is Storify.

As anyone in digital knows, the amount of content that is being created on a daily basis is immense. Billions of bits of content created on a daily basis which makes the amount of information to sift through impossible. In a way, our stories are now made out of disparate bits of information - Tweets, Videos, Flickr shots, Status Updates, etc - and the only way we consolidate them is when we tie them together in our minds as we view them (or someone creates a list for us and posts it on Digg).

Storify is hoping to change all that. Created by a former AP editor, the site allows users to create stories by pulling related-content together into one stream. Think of the stories as large articles with the different content bits actually embedded within them. For the iPad users out there, it's sort of like creating your own flipboard channel.

I've been using the service for a few days and have been pretty empressed. It's easier to pull the content together than a blog post would be and more comprehensive than simply linking to a post or video that you like.

I've created a Storify link that I've embedded in this post about Bill O'Reilly on the View. It took about 5 minutes to create and, to be an extreme nerd, was pretty fun. Here it is:



What do you think? Do you think you could get used to curating and consuming content in the way that Storify provides it?

Lexus: Most Advanced Driving Simulator in the World

I love it when companies don't just talk about how innovative they are, but they actually prove it. We've seen this from BMW and IBM and many others, but this Lexus demo video is pretty impressive. What do you think?

Google Instant just made SEM more important

Watch this video (again if you've seen it) or just go to Google and start to search. With the addition of instant I've noticed how much more my eye is drawn to the top paid search result.

The clamshell predictive text box literally pulls your eye directly down to the first result.

Brands time to own that top spot - if you haven't already.

A Good, Creative Minute

Bars & Tones from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Simple stuff. But pretty cool what you can do with a couple tones and bars.

McCain Fries: Same Brand, Different Country

McCain recently launched a new campaign in the UK. I've got to say that when I first saw this spot I thought it was for a camera / printer / photo brand. I was pretty surprised that this was from McCain (especially considering that I'm used to their Canadian ads). The re-watch factor isn't that bad and it's starting to grow on me. Thoughts?

Burn

Some nice, creative work from Publicis Mojo...for Coke:

Expectations have Changed

A few hours ago, TechCrunch posted this video that one of their readers had sent in. The boy in it is four. He's mastered the basic functions of the iPad and if you think this is the only kid in the world who can operate the tablet, you're wrong. Most can.

No more mouse. No more clunky, challenging operating systems. This little guy is being raised with the expectation that every screen can be touched and interacted with.

Clay Shirky tells a great story at the close of Cognitive Surplus about a friends daughter. The friend is watching a DVD with his daughter on the couch. At one point, she stands up and walks over to the TV. The goes behind the TV and looks at the cords. Then she walks in front and starts looking around the boarder of the TV. She's looking for something but her Dad isn't sure what. So he asks, 'What are you looking for?'

And she simply turns, looks at him and replies, "The Mouse".

Could this kid operate your experience? Or even understand the basics of it?

Proof

One of the areas that I've been thinking a lot about lately is how clients, brands and marketers really know if the people giving them digital advice, knowledge, experiences and ideas are, well, credible.

We all use best in class cases to help show clients (and ourselves) strategies that have been successful. And most digital people know the top examples off by heart:

• Looking for a great integrated example? How about Nike Run?
• Co-creation idea? myStarbucks idea.
• Wicked example of a series of videos going viral across a series of social spaces? Old Spice.
• Global promotion with a content series and big promotion? Bud House.
• Sweet look at how Google and brands can use HTML5? Arcade Fire experience.
• Alternate Reality Game? Remember Dark Knight?
• Charitable tie in with a brand that choose social media over the Super Bowl (for a year, at least) - Pepsi Refresh
• Customer service program that uses social? Twelpforce
• Smart example of a simple banner? Pringles

As a planner, I obsess over examples. In fact, reading the trades and seeing what other people are doing (and learning from their successes and failures) is something that, believe it or not, a lot of people fail to do.

But digital strategy, although easily explained via examples, goes beyond case studies of other (mostly global, large scale) examples.

Evaluating the cases in your own arsenal, based on the work that you've directed, can be humbling. For every Old Spice video there are 1,000 others with less than a couple hundred views. For every crowdsourcing success, there are hundreds of other (well-built, well-planned) experiences that nobody knows about.

Examples help us learn and plan. But until you've launched and failed (or, in the lucky event, succeeded), their just that - examples.

This mentality, I think, helps to explain why many social 'experts' focus on their own numbers.

'I have 80,000 followers, therefore, I know a thing or two about Twitter. Trust me.'

That's fair enough. But I don't think many clients have asked Kim to help them with their social strategies or turned to Brooke and asked her about how to optimise their content streams. (beyond the product placement here and there).

I joke - but do concede that large followings do show something. That you have a large number of followers. And that something about your stream has attracted them. Nice work.

But when you throw away external examples and personal ones and look at the ones that you've helped real brands / clients / agencies with, how do things shape up? It's OK to fail (it's really the only way to learn) but don't repeat the same mistake(s) over...especially with the same people.

Want to show someone that you can help others succeed in digital? Prove it.