Category Archives: Media

Media Industry

DoD Armed with New and Social Media

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The U.S. Department of Defense released on February 26, 2010 its official new media and social media policy. The Directive-Type Memorandum 09-026, which is effective immediately, states that DoD employees (including U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines) can use and participate in new media and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and forums.

Last year, David Meerman Scott interviewed Roxie Merritt, Director of New Media Operations at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in the DoD (the top social media person at the DoD) and told him about the need for this policy: “It’s not about controlling the message any more. It’s about giving people as much information and resources and facts as they can.”

Many large and small companies block employee access to YouTube, Facebook, and other social networking sites (David Meerman Scott’s guestimate is 25% US corporations). Some of the mentioned reasons are:

- Drain to productivity
- Security issue within the company computer systems
- People may harm the company brand should employees reveal too much information
- Bandwidth

With some three million employees, the DoD is one of the largest organizations in the world. And in fact, I hardly can think of any other organization to which security and information leaks could be more crucial. If the DoD can, so can any organization.

Augmented Reality: The Esquire Case for Marketers

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Technically, augmented reality refers to the technology that layers different kind of information, for example pictures, sounds words, etc. over live video. In its December 2009 issue, Esquire placed augmented reality markers that using a computer with a webcam trigger additional digital content on the computer’s screen. The Barbarian Group provided the augmented reality technology and Psyop the animations.

I scanned the Esquire cover which you can download and print to try it yourself. To run the augmented reality, you’ll need a software which can be downloaded from Esquire here.

In the past I worked on various marketing campaigns that combined online and offline into a comprehensive marketing mix. The Esquire example certainly shows possibilities for a seamless marketing integration between the digital and real world. I can imagine a billboard campaign where consumers point their smartphones and access a tailored augmented reality according to location, time, weather and other info, and that can be also constantly updated with real time offers. Interesting possibilities, yet I believe there is still real friction for consumers: They have to download and install an application (and of course have a smartphone able to run it).

Featured on BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange

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I will be the Featured User on Business Exchange on Wednesday, October 14 for 24 hours.

Business Exchange is a service of BusinesWeek that allows users to create business topics, collaboratively aggregate content and connect with other business focused users around these topics. The goal is to have access at the right time to actionable insight delivered in form of a feed.

Check my profile and contributions that led to be BX’s Featured User here .

Featured_on_Businessweek

First video ad ever in print magazine

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An upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly’s print edition will be embedded for the first time with a video player that will run ads for CBS shows and Pepsi.

The video player insert, made by a Los Angeles company called Americhip Inc., will be able to withstand the binding processes and mail delivery. The screen is 2.7 millimeters thick and has a 320×240 resolution. The battery lasts for about 65 to 70 minutes, and can be recharged with a mini USB cord via a jack on the back of it. The screen, which uses thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) technology, is enforced by protective polycarbonate. A speaker is embedded below it.

The cost is estimated at a several dollars per unit,  but the idea behind is to charge a premium for advertising that has potential to catch readers’ attention.

The ad comes in a heavy-paper package resembling the kind of novelty greeting cards that make noises. A roughly two-inch screen starts playing automatically as the page flips open:

This is an interesting development and if paired with other technologies such as RFID, maybe paves the road to the holy grail of all marketers: offline interactivity.

Branding with Facebook’s vanity URLs

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Starting Sunday, June 28 at 12:01am EST, Facebook has allowed all page owners to register a so called vanity URL.

With a vanity URL, brands can improve their presence on the web. These URLs can be easily recognized anywhere (i.e. http://www.facebook.com/audi for Audi), and they can help a profile page appear more prominently in search results. There’s another incentive to get a vanity URL: preventing someone else to use a vanity URL with your brand.

Vanity URLs come when FB is rolling out a number of other public-facing features useful to brands. FB’s new “Everything is Public by Default” setting allows to send out status updates and other information that are publicly available. This is excellent for brands, as a public-facing profile can be viewed by anyone. Companies can now have their social media presence established as a true extension of their brands, products and services.

FB is also making ads more interactive. For example, you might see an ad for a brand’s page, see a “become a fan” button, and officially become a fan without having going to the page itself. Vanity URLs facilitate consistency with the ad message or title.

Summary: FB is blending advertising with content users are sharing. The URLs make the brand more transmittable and accessible, while the ads invite users to create and disseminate co-created content. This branded content then becomes increasingly public and relevant.

Create Traffic with Twitter

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twitterAgainst common knowledge, one of the most common ways people use Twitter is as a social information filter and link distributor. In many cases, Twitter is also replacing people’s RSS readers (which is also my experience).

The case of TechCrunch is very interesting: One of the ways TC uses Twitter is to Tweet out links to their stories, which then spread virally as followers retweet those links. TC is a big believer in retweets (in fact, there is now a retweet button at the bottom of every post)

Over the past few months, TC has experienced the power of Twitter firsthand as the percentage of traffic has grown to the point that it is now their second largest source of outside traffic after Google. In the past 30 days, Twitter accounted for 9.7 percent of all traffic to Techcrunch.com, up from 1.8 percent six months ago. This is out of millions of visits.

Summary: TechCrunch is not typical of most Websites, but this data certainly shows the potential of Twitter to generate traffic.