von Roland Hachmann | Juni 7, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Digital News
To a greater or lesser extent most of us have gotten used to email spam. There are ways to filter it out, and the rest you can usually identify very easily and delete quickly.
But just today I have had a curious incident with Skype. Already a few days ago I had 2-3 people I have never heard of trying to get in contact with me, with spam-like messages.
Today, I was invited to a group chat with I don’t know how many other „victims“ I suppose. Most of them had left the group chat once I saw the open window, and all that was left were a few spam-like messages chatted by the initiator of the chat.
Does this mean IM is also subject to chat? Have they managed to invade the one digital communications channel that was – sofar – spam free?
And how about voice chat via skype? Will we have to face audio-spam ads during our telephone conversations?
I’m not sure whether or not I really saw spam, or just some unlucky coincidences. Did anyone encounter similar phenomena? According to Google, it does indeed exist…
von Roland Hachmann | Mai 22, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising
It is amazing. A viral campaign apparently already started for a movie, that will launch in 2008. That is at least 7 months down the line. I wonder how early is too early?
But, given the fact that it is a viral campaign, they need some time for spreading it.
There is a good overview about what has happened so far over here.
It seemed to have started with a static site, then some unbranded posters appeared in some US cities. Then:
Within 48 – 72 hours, all of the posters in major cities were defaced to resemble the image seen at the URL I Believe in Harvey Dent Too. If you went to that URL the site would ask for your email address. After you submitted (reusabale database anyone?) you were sent an email with the coordinates for a pixel that you could removeBatman4 from the site.
With users able to remove just one pixel each, a viral effort was underway to spread the word to get others to register and remove a pixel. In less than a day, thousands and thousands of unique visitors had visited the site to remove a pixel – ultimately revealing the face of the new Joker, Heath Ledger.
And then it goes on even more – I suggest you go here to continue to read. Really cool stuff – reminds us of „Snakes on a plane„
von Roland Hachmann | Mai 16, 2007 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Digital News, Online Advertising
A nice idea: In this movie by Axe, you can choose 2 or 3 times, which way the story of the movie should continue. Should the guy go with the girl(s), or should he resist and go home?
Naturally, the movie only ends well, if you click on „continue“ each time, so that the guy gets off with all the girls that lure him away.
Since I have a decent broadband line, I can watch the movie in good quality in almost full screen mode! Amazing, how this has evolved from the small thumbnail sized ads a few years back.
(found on adverblog.)
von Roland Hachmann | Mai 10, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media Marketing
- Online web presences are finallly compulsory according to this post. Even if the businesses aren’t doing any business online, consumers expect to be able to find information online, many even expect to be able to purchase online, even if they never actually would.
- According to this article at emarketer, the music industry is complaining without a cause, since even with decreasing sales on CDs, etc., net growth is strong. It’s just the fact that sales now increasingly come from digital music, merchandising and live performances. I never thought the music industry was in any danger any way.
- Forbes features a short essay, apparently written by Rupert Murdoch himself. It shows, that he has truly understood the signs of the times, but in essence, there is nothing new in this essay. Why am I posting it? It can serve as a good source for quotes when you’re preparing another one of these „convince the client’s bosses to invest in new media“ presentations.
- The Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog lists some more information on the advertisers that have made deals with joost, the much hyped new IPTV platform. Apparently, you can even find their ad content, when typing their names into the search function of joost!
von Roland Hachmann | Mai 8, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Culture, Digital News, Marketing, Marketing Trends, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Marketing
While I am still unsure about the real value of Twitter in marketing, Rohit Bhargava mentions four ideas of how Twitter can be valueable. I still ain’t convinced completely, but getting there…
Capture the live pulse of an event
This is one of the most popular marketing uses that I have seen for Twitter, where it is used to offer a visual display of conversations happening around an event. More and more interactive events have this, and I suspect other non-Web related events will start to incorporate it as well to offer participants a visual way to track the pulse of an event and determine where to spend time.
Undoubtedly, this could work. The question is: who is the target audience? If it is all those people at the event, who subscribe to one twitter feed about the event, it could be brilliant to let everyone know what is happening elsewhere within the event. If it is for people outside the event, the whole twittersphere of the event will sound like 140-character long gibberish to those not present, I suppose.
Deepen a static experience through live commentary
I saw an interesting story last week about how Fox is going to be using Twitter to promote their new show Drive by having the director provide live updates and directors commentary via Twitter throughout the show. We will definitely be seeing more of this type of marketing in the near future.
This could be nice, but only if the show is live, too. Otherwise, we’ll be reading tweets about stuff that we know nothing about until we see it a few months later on TV.
Facilitate collaborative watching
When it comes to watching video content online or on television, Twitter can allow you to watch something „alongside“ anyone anywhere by sharing your impressions and reading impressions from others as a program unfolds. This is a powerful new method of sharing feedback and ideas
This won’t work, if we truly believe in the end of programmed television. If people are not watching things at the same time, because everyone can watch „on demand“, then how can you share your thoughts with other viewers via twitter? Unless there is a „twitter group“ for that particular movie or series – and I just underestimate the scale of randomness: the fact that for some shows, there will always be somebody, at any given time, watching the same show as myself…
Add a new dimension to promotions
Scavenger hunts, user generated content campaigns, and other reality based marketing promotions are growing popularity as ways to encourage interaction from customers. Twitter can offer a way of encouraging dialogue between promotion participants and adding an „instant message style“ dimension to a promotion without the privacy and contact acceptance barriers normally associated with using IM for marketing.
This, I think, could be a fantastic use for twitter. A connection of customers in Twitter groups during promotions, enabling „swarm intelligence“, as we call it here in Germany, would be a brilliant setup for all sorts of ideas for promos, alternate reality games, real life social games or gatherings, etc.
So, in general, I start to like the idea of using Twitter for marketing, having been sceptical a few weeks / months ago. But I do think, that we still need a lot of refinement to make sure it’s not just a gimmick, but does actually contribute value to campaigns.
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