Digital Stuffing

The US Navy continue to be leaders in using social media to connect with service members, potential recruits, fans and other stakeholders. Here’s a presentation they’ve put up with some concrete examples and action plans we can all take something from

The first thing I have to ask about this video is why. I’m obviously not the right target for this promo from MSI computers, I can’t even be bothered to ask how they managed to make the computer stick in his arse all the time (sorry, ‘butt’ is the US term). But it’s doing well in the viewing lists and in the number of copies made, which I often think is a far better test of popularity.

Deep Focus, definitely one of the more interesting agencies around, bring us their latest web tool Mad Men Yourself. Nothing groundbreaking, it’s a ‘create your avatar’ app, with lots of options to choose from to create an image of the 60′s.

Mad Men Yourself selector (screenshot from site)

The whole thing is nicely done, with plenty of choices and some lovely touches throughout. One of my favourites is the use of the slide carousel to choose your scene, associated with one of my favourites scenes from the first series. There are a few niggles, with some of the choices being too small to see properly although the biggest one for me was about lack of payoff at the end – where do I go to see more about the series. It’s there, but not called out. (the new one starts 16th Aug in the US)

Madmen scene selector (screenshot from site)

At the end of the process, you get the option to download 3 versions, one for your twitter or other small avatars, one perfectly sized for your phone and the other for the computer. I’m expecting to spot a few of them around the web over the next few days.

Madmen Yourself (download from app)

The only brand video on the list isn’t exactly a video for a brand, but is definitely about a brand. The band Sons of Maxwell travelled by United Airlines last year, who proceeded to load their guitars without due care and attention. So they broke them. Complaining didn’t get them anywhere, so they turned to what they know best, writing a song – United Breaks Guitars – producing a video and getting massive hits on YouTube with all the accompanying press. United would have been better just apologising and preforming good customer service in the first place. They have only just now offered compensation. The full story on Dave Carroll’s site.

Work is completely taking over my ability to blog at the moment, so sorry for the lack of stuff. The things to write about is piling up, so expect a deluge soon. But the videos are pretty quick to review.

First up is the Evian Babies, a well deserved hit but full of very scary dancing babies. I’m trying to work out how it was done. (It’s far more entertaining than the myriad of Michael Jackson videos that are up there.

Then we have a film of a car driving around London. Not any old car, but a Citroen GT, which was designed for a video game and drew stares as it (slowly) meandered the streets.

It must be a car week. This is fun, from Seat

Argghhh. There’s Britain’s Got Talent videos everywhere. The final on Saturday was watched by over 18 million people (that’s about 27% of the population, so equivalent to an US audience of about 81million) and it seems they all uploaded videos to YouTube and then watched them. The other key videos seem to be Jonas Brothers and Twilight previews and the odd bit of Champion’s League with Barcelona v Man U, so little else has a chance to get on the list this week.

But the e*trade babies have crept into there, as a trailer for an ABC Money special that was broadcast last Friday. They were big around Superbowl and have made a comeback here.

The perils of a Bank Holiday weekend. I half write this…and never publish. Instead, I go to a village fete, watch some MayPole dancing, have a go at a Tug of war and stay off the web for the day. Then again, it never got published as there’s no product videos in the top ranked list for the last week. Instead, here’s something I’d like to see more of. A straightforward instructional video about the symptoms of Swine Flu from the US’s Centers for Disease Control. It’s a sensible decision for a government body to use social media for information, they’re going to be able to reach people who may not usually access the TV news or newspapers. Even more importantly, they’re not relying on a journalistic interpretation, which usually has a different goal, not information for to sell more papers or get more viewers.

The first challenge this week is to get though the multitude of Susan Boyle videos, of which there are a lot. She’s definitely hit the big time in terms of online (and offline) attention – she totally owns YouTube this week.

Highest ranked product video is this one from Patrick Doyle, President of Domino’s USA doing damage control after a video was uploaded of two employees adulterating pizzas. They’ve also launched a Domino’s Twitter feed which seems to be doing a good job of being conversational

Another fast food brand and another controversy, this time Burger King upsetting Mexico with its ad for the Texican Burger. Apparetnly, it’s because they are using the flag incorrectly; they’re replacing the campaign, used in Spain and the UK, as soon as is ‘commercially possible’.

Finally, the Microsoft PC ads are currently making enough of a stir to have a parody made, always the sign of an ad that has hit home one way or another. Here’s Homeless Frank trying to find himself a laptop for under $1000, from Landline TV

This morning, for reasons I’m blaming on the time of day and the lack of caffeine, I watched Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, plus a few friends broadcast live to the world over UStream as he reached 1 million followers on Twitter. You may have noticed over the last few days a competition has broken out between Kutcher and CNN for the first account to reach a million followers, with both parties promising donations to charity when they make it. Kutcher was first, probably as CNNbrk has been slightly more reticent in the publicity drive, although they were very close behind in the ‘race’.

Whist some may trumpet this as a victory of new media over old media, it isn’t. You could call it old media building on new, or old just plain co-opting and taking all the digital stuff for themselves. Via Doc Searls, I see a piece that describes what is happening in some places where brands, companies and celebrities are all playing in the space, from Steven Hodsen

As a result people are beginning to think that social media is nothing more than a round table with corporations, marketers and public relation people deciding on what the conversation is all about. Once more we are finding ourselves being talked to even though it is carefully couched in terms of openness and transparency.

This isn’t what Social Media was meant to be. Just ask people like Doc Searls, or Chris Brogan, or even newcomers like Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins. They’ll be among the first to tell you that Social Media isn’t about the tools or the services. It is about empowering the voice of the individual above that of the companies. It is about the socialization of all types of media in such a way that any individual if they try can be heard like never before.

The plain fact is that neither Kutcher nor CNN could have got this number of followers without old media, either in broadcasting pleas to follow on the news or in the years of mainstream coverage to build a fan base. This is not an either/or situation, this is new media being lassoed and brought into the fold so that it can be used in the same way. 1 million followers is not a ‘social network’, it’s a broadcast channel bigger than many newspapers or TV audiences. It does not empower the voice of the individual above the celebrity or company, it just ties them into more of the same.

Brands too could follow this model; they’ll think if these people can do it, or if Oprah can do it (she is going to do her first public tweet ‘live on TV’ today). But the reality is that brands rarely have anything to offer in the same league as celebrity ‘gossip’ (or an insight into the lives), or news. Broadcast mechanisms won’t necessarily work for them and the exchange value of a follow is not on their side. So I think all the current publicity about Twitter should not go to the marketers head. You still have to think very carefully about why you would use Twitter, how you can use it and what value you are adding to it.

JetBlue bring you a website just for bigwigs, those rich, 7 figure bonus earning bigwigs who run the companies. It’s supposedly selling the brilliant Jetblue service to the CEOs, so they don’t have to lose their perks when travelling.

Welcome to Bigwigs (screenshot from site)

This follows up from the JetBlue print executions, where they were welcoming all the former first class flyers to their services. It’s a nice, tongue-in-cheek execution, as expected from this airline.