Facebook's been used to promote everything else so why not create "fake" Facebook profiles to promote biographies of world figures? That, apparently, was Duval Guillaume's thinking when it launched Facebook profiles for Albert Einstein, Fidel Castro and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The profiles offer up quotes and images from the books as well as hosted comments and discussion of the figures. But only enough to tease so that you'll want to run out and buy the book, of course.
Seriously? You go to ad school. You drop out (lazy? flunked? too expensive?) to finish your books on your own. When you can't, you ask the ad industry to crowdsource it for you. What happened to good old fashioned hard work? Oh right, laziness reigns supreme these days. Can't cut it on your own? Open it up to the internets and surely someone else will cover your ass by doing your work for you.
Why are Eric Stiles and Nick Larson doing this? To challenge the current portfolio school system, they claim. Granted, the schools aren't perfect but if you two want to succeed in this business, you might just want to do some of your own work. Oh wait, we're all a bunch of lazy-ass delegators in this business so you'll both fit in perfectly.
Earlier this month we shared with you the work virtual agency was doing for Network for Animals. It was a series of videos on YouTube that took us through the process of selecting a spokesperson to appear in a commercial for the cause group. Well, gig has found their man. And we can say man because, well, it is a man. His name is Owen Miller and if Morgan Freeman had a brother (does he?), this guy would be him.
So here's the finished product. And here's all the lead up videos to the finished product.
- With It's My Time, Bennetton has launched a global search for the next face of its brand.
- Don't have enough money to buy your kid a seat on a plane for the family vacation? Boost Mobile has the answer.
- In a bid to determine digital savvy-ness, JetBlue wants agencies to find it on Twitter.
- Wow. Could this McDonald's commercial be any cheesier?
- Skype's new campaign for Skype Out.
- Google Vs Facebook from MyBrandz attempts to determine which social service is better for you.
- GPY&R Melbourne challenged its audience to eat a Picnic in the space of a :30 commercial break. People filmed themselves using mobile phones, webcams and handycams and then created their own TV ads using the website, http://www.itsnopicnic.tv.
Ooo! Ooo! Facebook Fan Pages work for marketers! A recent study conducted by Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business found companies that use Facebook fan pages can increase sales, word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty.
The study's researchers, Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business associate professor of management Utpal Dholakia and Restaurant Connections Founder Emily Durham who did the research for Houston-based café Dessert Gallery found the use of a fan page increased store visits by 36 percent, increased amount spent by 45 percent and increased loyalty by 41 percent.
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- Using its Facebook fan page with a membership of 3.7 million, Skittles' "Valentine the Rainbow" lets users create a digital valentine for an unsuspecting, hand-picked meter maid, one of the most hated professions in the country and one that deserves some sweet lovin'.
- Registration for Advertising Week 2010 has opened.
- Yea, yea, yea, That Belgian advertising agency strike.
- Check out The Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge from Captains of Industry. Enter your submission for the most mind numbing product descriptions.
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On Monday, SocialFresh held a conference in Tampa at the Doubletree Hotel. There were about 250 attendees or the day-long event. The usual social media-related topics were covered but, more importantly, we all gathered to watch the Super Bowl together Sunday night before the conference began.
Once the conference did begin, keynote speaker Maggie Fox from Social Media Group touched on how her company handles social media and uttered an all-important notion we've said over and over again here: Viral is a thing that happens. Not a strategy. Indeed. While you can certainly plan and make every conceivable effort to enable something to go viral, until it goes viral, it ain't viral.
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In a different kind of Movement, Chevrolet will send eight teams on a road trip to Austin for SXSW. Departing from San Diego, Detroit, Lansing, Chicago, Atlanta, South Florida, North Carolina and New York in early March, the teams will be given a series of clues to various destinations along the way and be asked to participate in several challenges (50 per team in all some of which will be "crowd sourced") such as using OnStar to assist someone along the way, stop at an animal shelter and give a dog a walk, grab a pen from a Chevrolet dealership, stuff the trunk of the vehicle full of balloons, meet up with a Twitter follower and give them a ride in the vehicle, sing in a public place and more.
Drivers and their teams will blog their adventures on a Posterous blog. GM is clear to point out speed to Austin is not part of the challenge. Winners will be determined challenge performance and the level of audience engagement they engender along the way.
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Once again it's the battle of the Twitter Super Bowl hashtags. Last year, there were about four that played prominently. In fact, we had one of our own. Can't even remember what it was. And we don't care. This year, we're letting someone else do all the work. An agency with, unlike us, an army of talented creative and technical people who can put stuff like Brand Bowl 2010 together.
So make sure you leave a tab handy in your browser for Brand Bowl. You can see how the ads rank based on tweets and other metrics. You can log in right from the Brand Bowl page and barf your Super Bowl commercial opinion for all to see. Oh, and there's a sweet link to Hulu where all the ads will be house once they air.
So for this year's Super Bowl Twitter hashtag, we're putting our money on #brandbowl. Sorry #sb44, #sbad, #sbads, #sbads10, #superbowlads, #admeter, #superbowl and all the rest of you.
- Check out Whose Voice is That? It's all about celebrity voiceovers and they've just posted a Super Bowl commercial roundup that looks at ten classic Super Bowl spots making great use of the narrator and/or voiceover.
- "The Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue," an exhibit that celebrates the contributions made to American business and to popular culture by the real stars of Madison Avenue, is coming to San Francisco for its first public showing outside of New York City at the Academy of Art University's 79 Gallery on New Montgomery Street February 24, 2010 for a one-week showing.
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