Check out the whole…strip? Right here: State of the Web.

Thanks to Willer for the tweet.

/Baek

/Baek

The take-out naturally is that it is still fresh even after thousands of years… They used QR codes to give more information and tell the story. Pretty cool. Read the case here at ypsylon2.

Click here to view the embedded video.

/Baek

Read more at Mashable

/Baek

Eavesdropping on a typical conversation among teens would sound like the above and would also be what we call phatic communication. Communication without real content but with a lot of meaning. It basically means: ‘I’m here, I exist, and I like to be reached. The feedback from my friends is what makes me a part of this world.’.

This phatic communication takes place both IRL and online e.g. Facebook photo postings are not narcissistic acts but a way to reach out and get feedback.

These observations stem from Morten Bay from Haus in L.A. and author of Homo Conexus. He  delivered an interesting presentation in high speed.

In that proces convenience is king!
We now see how people are acting more and more like an organism in their social behavour and the social media platforms work as enablers. Still, the number one media for young Danes is still ‘tekst-tv’ because it’s so easy to access and on-demand. So in order to make people use a service it needs to be convenient.

There was a lot of other really interesting ideas in the presentation so Morten’s  book is now on my to-do-list.

Now, I’m thinking it can be pretty useful as a tool to gain insights and tap into different conversations. What do you think? Do you have any experiences or ideas regarding the use of this tool?

/ iben larsen

Well, not so far back, let’s skip a couple of years:

Since 2004, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, two analysts on social media from the international research company Forrester, have been bus. Since 2004 the’ve been posting about social media and technology from a marketing perspective on the blog Groundswell.  This year they’ve written a book, which I have just ordered on amazon today.

Charlene and Josh are also handing out seven Groundswell Awards, rewarding excellent and effective use of social technologies to advance an organizational or corporate goal. And the categories are:

” LISTENING. Find out what customers are really saying in order to understand them better.

TALKING. Spread messages about a company.

ENERGIZING. Get a company’s best customers to evangelize its products.

SUPPORTING. Help customers support each other to solve each other’s problems.

EMBRACING. Integrate customers into the way a business works, including using their help to design products and improve processes.

MANAGING. Empower employees and managers within an organization.

SOCIAL IMPACT. Improve society with non-commercial applications. “

You can have a look at the nominees and winners here, but I’d like to present to of the winning cases here, Namely the winners of the first two categories.

The LISTENING is all about consumer insight. How do we listen to them to understand them better? The winner was Mattel’s The Playground Community by Communispace.

Mattel and Communispace created a private online community of 500 moms with kids aged 3—10 in June 2007, in order to help them listen to and gain insight into the lives and needs of moms to help drive growth and innovation. On August 2, Mattel had to recall 1 million chinese-made toys painted with lead-based paint, and less than two weeks later, on August 14, Mattel recalled 18 million products that contained strong magnets that may detach and cause serious damage when ingested.

What did Mattel do? During this crisis they turned to their Playground Community, who gave them the information they needed to develop relevant and meaningful messages for the market, in some periods having daily contact with their community-moms.

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff explain their award choise:

“Despite several worldwide product recalls in 2007, Mattel reported fourth quarter 2007 sales had increased 6% over last year. [...] Mattel’s listening strategy helped it to weather a difficult period and further solidified its relationship with moms as a brand that cares deeply about children and their families”

As marketing professionals we often try to come up with brilliant and engaging ways of spreading the message about our company and product, moving towards greater emphasis on below the line promotion.

A month ago I wrote a blog post about the challenges of promoting generic low-involvement products such as personal banking. The winner of the TALKING award is The Common Wealth Credit Union. A bank deeply rooted in Northern Alberta. Click at the picture below and take a look at this brilliant video. It’s 8 minutes long but it gives a genuine insight into the case, portraying how they suceeded in growing the number of new account openings  by 960% among 19-25 year olds compared to the same period a year prior:

This is social media marketing at its best. Really. Most importantly, it’s created extensive positive media coverage. I wonder if it would work in the banking industry in  Denmark. Could we communicate this way to 19-25 year-olds about banking?

I, for one, would like to congratulate The Common Wealth Credit Union on their alternative yet solid work. Larissa, last year’s winner,  got a nine-month contract. Now, Young & Free Alberta have just found next years spokesperson. Congratulation, Myles!

//Jakob

We built our own secure blog site that, by actively engaging consumers, enabled us and our clients to gather real consumer insights.DigiFaces uses sophisticated technology to create a simple and user-friendly interface. We can stimulate discussion on any brand, category or product while enabling participants to express their opinions freely. It’s not just words. We can upload video and stills for participants to review and provide feedback. We often ask our participants to make videos about their everyday lives (relevant to the research), which we edit into mini-documentaries to help keep the research ‘alive’.

DigiFaces has rapidly become an effective multimedia blogging tool that engages consumers and delivers fascinating insights into how they think, feel and act.

/ iben

It’s entertaining and fun and at best could offer inspiration and insights to a crowd of talented and original thinking and living people who express their hate/love on their city, play the (air)guitar, introduce us to their most talented friends, show their new clothing collection in their studio, and talks about everything from blogging to fashion.

A new show is posted every Friday on Myspacetv.com

Yvan also got a fashion blog called ‘Facehunter – eyecandy for the stylehungry’ – check it out: http://facehunter.blogspot.com/

The Facehunter Show Moscow – Part 1

/ Iben