This ad is just too cool to not share!
Go on, have a laugh!

Wilkinson Swords.

One of the conversations that has been plaguing my mind since a few days is that of responsible marketing.
In this day and age, what is responsible marketing and what actions deem you a responsible marketer?
As a consumer, the answer is easy to point out: Don’t pollute my space and if you absolutely have to, keep me entertained while you do that.

A great example is watching TV shows on abc.com. Each 40 minute episode is interspersed  with 30 second commercials, usually all sponsored by the same brand/ company. Each episode packs about 2.5 to 3 minutes worth of opportunities to entertain me and lure me away from the episode into wanting to learn more about your product, or buy it. And the funny thing is, because abc.com has been so nice to make their shows available online, I actually don’t really mind the commercial interruptions at all. It’s every marketers dream to have their consumer in a state-of-mind where they will not object to advertising, right?

But sadly, I’ve only seen a few brands do it right. Some companies try to get all funky and cram interactive games within the 30 seconds which frankly, by the time they load, the 30 seconds are done and I’m continuing with my episode. Some marketers have teh same ad play again and again every 30 second. My point – if you have my attention for 3 minutes, atleast don’t insult my intelligence by showing me teh same ad. Be innovative, create a story. Entertain me.

Lucky for those brands because I cannot remember the names of those that do it wrong. But I do remember the names of those that did it right. Great example: Sprint.
In 30 seconds, I learn how to sooth a baby, peel an egg, turbo park, make an instant sorbet etc etc
And by lord, I also remember the URL www.waitless.org

The waitless campaign, is subtly branded and superbly executed. They make my 30 seconds of interruption worthwhile, enjoyable and memorable. That’s not just great advertising, that’s a great example of understanding the consumer’s medium and creating an experience that is rich and meaningful for that medium.

That to me is responsible marketing.
PS – It would be better if Sprint made this videos available for sharing. Free the content!

Facebook has become a hot topic of discussion and scholarly study. Since facebook applications platform opened up, there are about 5000+ applications only with no real monetization channels. I have expressed my views before about the facebook applications — but there’s an interesting social awareness that is surfacing in this sphere: almost a sort of cultural megalomania.

People are taking pride in sharing their ‘bookshevles," movie interests, virtual gifts, traveled cities and causes. Essentially, all applications that allow them to display their ‘cultural worth’ or ‘cultural currency." I have been guilty of this as well — having toyed around with each of these applications and then removed them because I got lazy of updating my ‘cultural hall of fame’ or simply realized that others had more fuller maps and more gifts and more drinks from their friends and that I would just look lame with such a meagre supply of all of the above. It’s interesting to me that there is a visual metaphor on facebook for all kinds of cultural behavior people engage in — and that people are taking pride in & engaging in that sort of cultural bragging where they think of those graphics as trophies and reflections of who they are and what their online worth is.

It is also, a very strong tool for people to control and sometimes manipulate exactly what their online identity will be. I am hard-pressed to say this is new to facebook. It probably started when we first spent hours trying to pick the right email handle, the right icq name, the right AIM name, the right msn name….The handle reflects our personality and it a strong representation of our physical self into a virtual world. Online diaries, livejournals and blogs allowed to portray our virtual handle in the real world — and supplement it with constant data and feed to promote it, build it further and even, live up to it.

Facebook applications and facebook itself — by allowing visual and graphical representations of more than one aspect of our intelligent/ the culturally assimilated self, as taken this cultural megalomania to a whole new level.

And that’s the extend of thought I’ve given this right now —
what about you?

Life has been kind to me. I’ve met some amazing people who have taken a chance in me and given me the kind of opportunities someone my age can only dream of. And I strongly believe in passing it on . So something I am very passionately involved in is trying to mentor college students. It is a two-way street really — I pass on what I know and they always end up surprising me.

This past spring, I voluneteered my Sunday evenings and weekday lunches to mentor a few super smart college students that were interested in advertising/ marketing. Rohit Bhargava, VP of Interactive Marketing at Ogilvy PR and his entire team were kind enough to extend us some real juicy assignments to work on. And that’s when I really began to pay attention to how college students use the internet. Simply based on my observations, I was a little surprised to learn that most college students are not as social-media savvy as we digital media practioners think them to be.  The most startling discovery was that college kids do not blog. (This is an observation, so if you have a different experience, please share) In hindsight, this doesn’t surprise me because when I was in college, I was pretty much the only one blogging among the people I knew. (And it was not so long ago)

Last night, Annie (Social Media Director at GPTMC) and I spoke to bunch of curious college students at Temple Unversity’s Student Ad Club. And we both thought it was very interesting out of 20 some students present at the meet, not one blogged. And only a couple read blogs. I have questions about this — and I’m returning to this group next week to sit with them to really understand how they are using the internet and all it’s social application.

Some other observations:

• They didn’t use or know of twitter but used the facebook status update very often
• Almost all of them were familiar with perezhilton.com — or his show.
• They were curious and a common question was, "what do you blog about?"

What do you guys think? Any insights you can share? I’m putting together a survey to learn more about how college students use the internet — any ideas on what should be in the survey?

So I have some very exciting news to share! (www.advanta.com) Advanta Bank Corp – where I work in their Innovation Group, just launched www.ideablob.com at the prestigious DEMO (www.demo.com) conference in San Diego last week.

Advanta is one of the largest issuers of Mastercard credit cards for small business owners. We have been in financial services for over 50 years. For the last four months, our team was frantically pushing through to bring ideablob to life. And in case you didn’t know — it’s a huge feat for a bank to have managed this in such a short time. (I’ve become a quasi-expert on legalese involving the launch of a social network!) It was a not only a fantastic learning experience, but also incredibly gratifying to see how brillaintly our legal, Project management, customer service and innovation teams worked together. Truly a roller-coaster ride!

We had every intention of launching this year, but getting into DEMO motivated us and pushed us further to launch sooner. DEMO only invites about 70 companies from hundreds of applications it receives. And our fantastic team (all members are not pictured above) went and conquered !

I will soon share with you our flickr photo stream, but to give you an idea of how carefully and beautifully the whole launch was orchestrated — 10 of us from Advanta were at DEMO, each of us had different T-shirts that represented a particular small business industry and we had matching business cards with it. On the first day — I was the DRAMA QUEEN, representing actors (yepp — they are a small business) and my business card stated facts about actors. The T-shirts were a delight and we were asked several times if they were for sale! haha…

Anyhow, I’d urge you to check out www.ideablob.com

It’s a humble effort from a bank to try to be different and to try to make a difference. We want to build this online community for the give and take of business ideas. We are also awarding $10,000 to the business idea that gains the most votes at the end of each month. Yep – we are talking the talk and walking the walk. As we should be. I’m very proud of my team and the guys at Red Tettermer (www.redtettemer.com) and Seso Media (www.seso.net) who helped us make this possible.

(BTW — we also won the People’s Choice award at Demo. woohooo. Any Demo peeps that chance upon this, do say hello!)

I have started enjoying Wired magazine again — I go through phases with this magazine for some reason. Anyways, this months issue comes with a delicious booklet titled, Geekipedia — 149 people, places, ideas and trends you need to know NOW.

Sorry for the picture- -taken using the MAC camera. (much easier than using a digital camera!) but, make sure you pick up the booklet!

Also, check out the Humping Dog USB from Courtney’s blog — I love what imagination can do!

I’m always fascinated when everyday brands that you wouldn’t usually think twice about (cereal, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste…) especially the Fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) brands make the effort to ensure that they are providing their customers a uniform and unique experience acrosss all channels.

Most FMCG brands don’t get it that they have passionate customers too. If they did, would’nt they be doing the same thing that Kashi just did with it’s website ?

I associate Kashi with Whole Foods because that’s where I buy the cereal. I wouldn’t care a lot about my cereal brand having a website, but I would sure google it to just check it out. I would perhaps spend a couple minutes on teh site and then never return. But Kashi’s new website works for me on several accounts: 1) I spent more than a couple minutes on it. 2) I returned back to the site and will probably continue to do for as long as Kashi remains one of my favorite cereals.

In addition to becoming an extension of the brand themselves, useful websites like this one, also promise a very unique experience to each individual user. Customers get passionate about their brands – and this passion needs a platform too. Even if it’s just for a box of cereals.

I chatted with Rick Webb of the Barbarian Group and he mentioned how he has pitched useful sites like this one to 30 or so clients and had just one taker: Kashi. Kudos to Kashi for being bold enough to break the mold. Webb also mentioned that the site has seen an 80% repeat visitor rate and about 300 people signing up on the site every day. Not bad for a cereal brand, huh?

Ever since facebook.com opened it’s doors to the general public, the original inhabitants of the space (a.k.a former and current college students like me) have been dealing with some really important etiquette rules. For example, when you add someone on linkedin – do you also add them on facebook? Linkedin is like inviting yourself to someone’s office – fairly acceptable but facebook feels like inviting yourself to someone’s home- not so sure if that’s so acceptable.

Also how do you respond when colleagues, former bosses or people you simply admire and want to maintain a professional relationship with, add you on facebook? Can you realy decline, "Uhh – no thank you. I’m not sure I want you seeing my wall." Or my photographs. Or following my updates on twitter.

Facebook was a sanctuary – not anymore. It has become sadly become yet another social front that has to be maintained. My friends have become used to messaging me privately instead of writing on my wall as have I learnt to return the respect. Writings on walls are deleted in no second and for current college students who have some 300 plus photographs of themselves on facebook – I’d delete them before I launch on my job-hunt. Or atleast make them invisible. It’s like being found on a crime-scene — so many tracks to cover, hide and sometimes, create new ones if necessary.

I’m no Master, but I’ve figured out some pointers that, hopefully will help you as they helped me maintain a dual existence on facebook.

1. Always have a limited profile, but have it with just enough (general) information on it so that the person doesn’t know it’s a limited profile.
2. Try to not add people upfront – have them add you. This will automatically let you grant them access to limited or full profile and help you avoid the embarrasment in case you forget to limit someone while adding them. If you want them to notice you – send them a private message and hopefully, they’ll get the hint and add you.
3. This might be a tough act to follow but sadly it has come down to it: be careful about the photos you post on facebook and your photos that your friends post. De-tag yourself from photos your friends post so you won’t be easily found. Limit access to your photo albums under limited profile views.
4. Don’t twitter too much on facebook – really, if you are having a sucky Monday morning – your facebook followers don’t always need to know that. Esp. if your current boss is on facebook.

Go to:

1) www.google.com

2) Click on Google Maps

3) Click on GET DIRECTIONS

4) Type New York in From

5) Type Vienna in To

And notice:

Google directions ask you to drive all the way up to the Atlantic and then SWIM ACROSS THE ATLANTIC (3462mi) and then drive up to Viena. (Click on the screenshot for larger view)

Why not just say, ‘Go to JFK. CATCH PLANE. Land in Viena."

ROFL. (Thanks Paul for sharing!)