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AT&T and Apple: Co-op advertising done right

Like most of America, you're probably watching the all-out holiday advertising war between the two leading cell phone providers.

Frustrated, perhaps, with the staying power of those fun "there's an app for that" ads (Apple is known for finding a clever idea and sticking with it to the point of complete exhaustion. It seems Justin Long will be playing Mac, for example, until well into his own middle age), Verizon fought back with the most emasculating force in advertising: sarcasm.

Their "there's a map for that" campaign exploited an AT&T weakness and caused nothing short of a war to break out in the courts and in prime time. In fact, if anything will get us out of this recession, it may be the unprecedented level of media buying between these two giants.

But, for AT&T and Apple, it's more than a brute force. The two have teamed up to leverage unique aspects of each of their authentic brands to change the conversation. The advantage they're both talking about is: the ability to use voice and data together.

AT&T - the category leader and uber-practical and sophisticated brand - brought in Luke Wilson to add a human element to its essentially intellectual argument: doesn't it make sense that you would talk and type on one device? At the same time, no less.

But, be honest, you've probably never thought about typing and talking together. Or, at least, it's not a feature you're looking for. That's where Apple comes in. They are the standard in consumer expectation. They seem to know what we need before we ourselves are even able to put words to it. They can make talk and type not only cool, but really, really desirable.

Together, the campaigns appeal to our egos and our brains. We want to try it, to make it our own. Suddenly this little-known feature is a game changer. Apple's ads create demand and AT&T's fulfill it. Rarely are cooperative campaigns so complementary and powerful.

Better Social Media Executions: Three Best Practices for Colleges

Answer me this:

• How many websites and networks are you registered for?
• How many different passwords do you have out there?
• How many email addresses have you used and discarded along the way?
• Do you get a sense of panic when you have to answer a new generation of security question, wondering truly if your favorite color/food/pet will really be the same as it is today when you eventually forget your password?

Managing all these different identities and accounts is a hassle. Uploading your best photo (and re-uploading it when you find a better one). Filling out all the information. It’s creating a barrier to participating. Who has time for another account setup?

So why are so many colleges asking their potential students and alumni to do just that?

I recently wrote about four of the top colleges in social media. Ones that “got” their audience and came up with a clever strategy that made just the right connection.

But, they’re not the only ones out there with good ideas. Think of all the social media campaigns you’ve looked at and thought: well, that had a lot of potential. The idea was clever, but the execution? Just not there.

Often what’s missed is one of three simple best practices:

1. Make it easy.
   Don’t ask you audience to adopt a new behavior or even create a new account if you don’t have to. Leverage the tools they already use. Sync with their behavior. Be as creative with technology as you are with strategy.
   
   Who does it well: Barnard invites its alumni to connect via a private network. But it doesn’t take a new account to join, alums can just leverage their existing Facebook credentials to enter. 
   
   Stanford University uses the technology in its students’ pockets. Last school year, Stanford released a free iPhone application called iStanford that allows students to register for classes, look up campus maps and be able view the location of their friends on a map – instant messaging them if need be.
   


2. Use a personal voice
   I would argue that voice is the single most important element of a successful social media execution. The medium rewards casual interactions. People feel more intrigued by – and connected to – brands that they sense are authentic and more genuine than their competition.
   
   Who does it well: University Nebraska-Lincoln is hands down the execution expert here. David Burge is the Associate Director of Admissions there and he’s also the host of the popular online video program Real Nebraska.
   
   Real Nebraska was developed as a recruitment tool and is available to prospective students through the admissions website, vodcast, and on YouTube. The program, in its third season, averages several hundred hits per day and was featured on the TODAY show in early March.
   
   Shot, edited, and staffed with entirely in-house talent, the three seasons of Real Nebraska have produced more than thirty 3-4 minute episodes highlighting student life. Importantly, they’re told in a friendly, relevant voice. Full of ready-to-pass on soundbites, subtle answers to those pesky questions you’re afraid to ask, and a real peer-to-peer authenticity


3. Seed the audience
   You’ve probably heard that the idea if you build it they will come is about as outdated as that Friendster login you’ve got written down on your old Trapper Keeper. It takes some work to get a new social media destination to critical mass. That’s where seeding comes in. It’s an intentional strategy for how you’ll get your first users.
   
   Often social media campaigns don’t have the kind of marketing dollars behind them that traditional programs might. So, it’s important to think about what you can do with what you have.
   
   For example, in 2006, CareerBuilder launched a fun little ecard destination called Monk-e-mail. Using a phone and their computer, visitors could customize a talking monkey and send it off to a friend’s inbox. With few resources to publicize the site, they looked for what assets they did have: the people who worked there. All the employees at CareerBuilder (~1500) and at their agency partner (~300) were asked to send n monk-e-mail card to 10 friends. There were no marketing dollars spent to promote this campaign.
   
   Since then? Over 100 million monk-e-mails cards have been shared.
   
   Who does it well: Capital University. You’ve probably seen me write about their Will You campaign before.
   
   (Short story: This was a great collaboration between the agency I work for and Kevin Sayers and his team at Capital. It was a show and tell of the school’s evolved brand that mapped in comments from Facebook; pulled in Tweets with a certain hashtag; grabbed photos from Flickr, etc., to get a whole campus of feedback.)
   
   But the part I didn’t talk about was the seeding. They didn’t assume that the site would naturally take off (even though there was quite a bit of curiosity on campus). They made sure to make some noise.
   
   They chalked the website address on campus sidewalks; Sharpied it onto white boards; saved it on screensavers; hung it on fliers. They gave sneak peeks to talk leaders and sent post cards to parents. In short, they bootstrapped a clever seeding campaign and got real results. 120,000 people visited the destination in the first three months. And 6% of the student population engaged by leaving a comment or a photo.

Top Four Colleges in Social Media

Colleges have been early adopters of social media. They've built Facebook pages and launched Twitter feeds much sooner than lots of their business-minded peers. Using blogs as an example:

• In 2007, 32% of colleges blogged vs. 8% of the Fortune 500 or even 19% of the much savvier Inc 500
• In 2008, they remained well ahead of that curve: 41% of colleges blogged vs.13% of the Fortune 500 and 39% of the Inc 500

But most still face the same challenge: they have a lot of content, but not a lot of engagement.

A number of colleges can count their Facebook fans in the tens of thousands. But the one with The Single Highest level of engagement only has about 300 fan posts. How do colleges translate this interest and affiliation to action? The answer seems to be a more targeted strategy. Not just testing these hot new tactics, but understanding the needs of their audience, setting clear objectives and then picking the tactic that makes the most sense to deliver results.

Four colleges have cracked the code:

1. SUNY. Their New Paltz campus wanted to increase the academic quality of the incoming class. Through their current outreach efforts, they were able to get on these high-quality student's short lists (and accept them); the challenge was convincing them that SUNY was the right final choice. They decided to find a way to make these students feel more connected to SUNY. The tactic was a private community called Cafe New Paltz.
   
   Students were invited to join through a tiered invitation system: First build relationships with the students we want most; then open it up to the entire class. Two people were dedicated to act as hosts and update content. That was essential to the strategy: consistently delivering valuable content. It gave students a compelling reason to spend time on the site (the average visit was a whopping 14 minutes) and delivered the desired results by increasing the percent of their “highest selectivity” group that made deposits from 30% to 37%. Read more at .eduGuru.


2. Wittenberg University. The project is called Witt Nation. It's a summer roadtrip that started with a defined goal: Build stronger relationships and reach out to like minds. 13 talk leaders traveled 8,000 miles to host events in 27 cities. On the road, they met more than 1,000 passionate fans - creating something that looks very much like the core of the Wittenberg brand: a unique place for unique people.
   
   Importantly, Wittenberg integrated the “on the road” experience with an online community - building out a storytelling space to connect with potential students and engage alums. The stories collected each summer will live on beyond the road trip. (I can't help it, I still think Plaid's is cooler!)


3. Mayo Medical School.Here's one that was actually inspired by all that testing of various social media tactics. Mayo admits a small, diverse freshman class. They come from around the country and around the world to embark on the toughest education challenge of their lives. Naturally, they're nervous and tend to know no one on Day 1 of the fall semester. So, orientation has always been an important focus for the school - get people acclimated to start them off right.
   
   By testing different tactics, they found that Facebook groups were more effective than their traditional orientation efforts. So, they tried refocusing all of their orientation efforts there. They earned 100% participation by pairing the with right (exclusive) content with the right experience. And, it worked. Not only did they notice better teamwork and integration in incoming classes, they were also able to refocus staff time and cost savings on curriculum.
   
   Barbara Porter, Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Affairs said “We used to worry about learning their names because we didn’t want them to feel isolated. Well, now they know everybody by the time they get here.” Hear her talk more about the program on YouTube.


4. University of Minnesota.The school's Carlson MBA program was struggling to meet its admission goals. The marketing team knew what they needed was to make direct connections with more potential students. Unfortunately, this kind of student - professional, adult, heads of household - is a little trickier to reach than your average incoming freshman. Even when events and programs were offered, many of their most-desired students didn't attend - they were too busy or couldn't make it at that particular time.
   
   Carlson used social media to overcome the barriers of communicating with non-traditional students. They created an account on Twitter to answer questions and engage potential students in real time (while, creating a searchable archive). The strategy worked. They increased the number of applications for the incoming class. See the feed.

For more on this topic, see the full Making Digital Connections in Higher Education presentation from the recent conference I was part of at Ologie.

Commercials that entertain

These days, it's all about content, right? Not just pitching people on good old attributes and benefits, but engaging them. Getting them to spend some time with you. Getting them to talk about you.

Yeah, you've heard it before, all about the death of the :30 second spot, the rise of relationships, the era in which peers - and, as it turns out, dogs - rule.

But, how the heck do you make that all happen when your deliverable is, in fact, a :30 second spot? A couple of my favorite examples below. Ones that not only entertain, but also take on the core challenge of branding: showing who you're for and what you're about.

Pedigree "dogs rule": Connecting with dog owners over the simple joy of fetch. (TV version/Internet version):

Esurance "lucky today": Making connections over music. Does it get more "friendly" than that? (TV version/Internet version):

Commercials that are opening minds

Remember when this blog used to be about advertising? Like all the time?

Today, a break from all the social media preaching for a quick look at two of the best commercial campaigns of the new year: Kaplan and Carnival.

First, let's acknowledge: These are tough products to introduce to new audiences. We all have pretty firm (and final) opinions on online degrees and cruises. They're either for people like us - or a weird choice "other people" make.

In these two decidedly-emotional campaigns, Kaplan and Carnival get us to reconsider what we think we know. They connect with us in ways that inspire camaraderie and delight.

"The basic difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions." ::Donald Calne

Carnival did it with JOY. A sense of absolute playful fun - shown in moments you wish you were a part of:

Kaplan did it with that uniquely-collegiate sensation of DISCOVERY. A sense of reaching new conclusions, staking new ground, discovering new ways to think about old problems - shown in moments of heady philosophy: 

Rethinking Web strategy for nonprofits: The New Best Practices (1/3)

#1 Think of small gift donors as impulse buyers. It needs to be as easy for them to give $10 to you as it is for them to pick up a candy bar at the checkout aisle. Katherine Lumb made this great remark on Twitter a while back: "Usability 2.0 is not so much 'I can't figure this out' as it is 'I don't have time for this sh*t'."

When you're asking for a $5 - $25 donation, you're not competing with other charitable giving. Instead, you're up against daily consumer spending. It's a quick choice. Not unlike ordering a pizza instead of cooking dinner or picking up a magazine at the grocery.

The mental barrier to giving is very low. But the expectation for an easy process is extremely high.

This American Life (my very favorite show) routinely asks listeners to give $5 or $10 to cover the streaming costs of its free podcasts. Keep it free. Keep it from burdening our home station. Reasonable request, right? I've gone to the Web site to give three times, but have never actually gone through with it. Why? Because I'm confronted with this - a form designed for pledge week:


It's long. Requires a credit card. And doesn't appear to offer to save my information to make it easy for me next time.

Compare that it Kiva.org. Hipsters' favorite little international loan collective. They ask for ~$25. A little higher, but still in the impulse give category. After I fill in my amount, it can be this simple:

Can I choose to give by credit card? Yeah. Or, I can just login with Paypal and it knows all my address and personal information + let's me give with one click.

It's fast, easy and relevant to the way I want to give.

How can This American Life take this impulse give approach into their own fundraising efforts? Four suggestions:

• Make PayPal a payment option on the site.
• Make recurring payments easy - either automatic or text / email to confirm
• Offer text to give (The host asks for a $5 gift during the program. Asking people to text a short code to a number to automatically have a $5 charge added to their phone bill is about as easy as it gets)
• Partner with iTunes or other fulfillment sources to let listeners name their own price for the podcast (letting them give while they're directly getting the value)

Laughing at ourselves: Tourism humor that works

Since writing a few posts on the “Not in Columbus” convention and tourism campaign, I’ve found myself in an ongoing offline debate about what works and what doesn’t in tourism advertising. Since I have little or no experience in the category, I’ve been educating myself the blogger way: search, click and play.

No question, it’s a tough business. Glamming up the decapitated mountains of West Virginia, differentiating one artsy desert community from another, making even a big-ass mall seem like a destination.

It’s no wonder we want to laugh at ourselves.

But doing humor well…. That’s tough. The campaigns that do it well deliver three key things consistently:

1. Communicate a vibe, a personality of the place
2. Quickly transition from a self-effacing laugh to the good stuff
3. Make it easy for you to see yourself in them (either in the story or in the place)

My two favorite examples of campaigns doing it well couldn’t be more different:

Minneapolis' Unconvention Campaign.
Sponsored by the city's groundswell - a group of independent organizations, businesses and people - and centered on the playing host to the Republican convention, this integrated print and Web campaign is laugh-out-loud funny and still delivers on all the criteria above.

 

See the full campaign

Maine's "It's Got to Be Maine" Campaign

Sure, it's one thing to do independent well. But, what about official advertising? The kind that has to go through channels and committees and compromises?

I like Maine's campaign because it survived the gauntlet relatively intact. It pokes a little fun at the state, but in a personal, inside-joke kind of way. And, once its campy humor stops you, the fast-paced montage communicates a wholly unexpected vibe. WKB Spier produced this campaign. You can see more examples in "the work" section of their Web site.

Breaking through: Online tools that convert browsers to fans

We've probably all found ourselves building Web applications we weren't quite sure about. Like, say, a Merman-a-gram or a hip-hop video featuring a personalized BBQ bottle getting down with its saucy self. (Yes, that is me on the bottle - courtesy of friend Joy.)

For every couple thousand of these little interactive wonders we chef up, there are a special few that manage to captivate an audience. That hold us from the first click until ... hey, where'd that last 10 minutes go?

Two recent examples to get lost in:

Edu-commerce

Closing a high-engagement sale (think selecting an insurance plan, buying a car, etc.) is always a challenge online. Lost is the sense of urgency, the gentle prodding by the "expert" in the room. Instead there's the ability to browse, to get frustrated, to wander off...

Imagine how much harder that sale is when you add in ignorance. An entirely new group of novice buyers entering a specialists category. Ouch.

Indie ad agency Woods Witt Dealy & Sons paired education with e-commerce to solve just such a problem for IRO Cycle.

Short story: Fixed gear bikes are to messengers as hush puppies are to hipsters. They're that one have-to-have item that broke through the barrier from enthusiast to fan. And, suddenly a whole bunch of folks who'd never wielded as much as a pedal wrench before wanted their own stripped down urban two-wheeled ride.

The IRO Cycle build-your-bike site takes shoppers into the grit of building a fixed gear. You pick your drivetrain, your rider, etc., but each choice shares both the lingo-ed "what" and the plain English "why."

Just about anyone could feel confident building a bike on this site. AND they'll walk away talking the talk.

(Congratulations to Kristen Milligan on this one. This is the very first press release find I've posted.)

Creativity Fix

How many online quizzes have you taken? A slew, I imagine. From What kind of care bear are you (?) to who's your mate? Half of them I click off long before they've diagnosed me.

Enter this gorgeous quiz from My Deco, a publisher tagged as a furniture fix for the decorati.

Every question is answered by selecting a conceptual image from a delightful mood board of ideas. Your ideal bedroom, favorite chair, color palette for your living room.

At the end, you get the verdict. Just what kind of design style you have. But, the experience of the quiz is enough to communicate the expertise of the publisher. Yeah, they get it. And, I can't wait to see more.

Spotted by creative co-worker Carrie on Creative Envy.

Breaking through: High-engagement agency marketing

Writing about Plaid's quest the other day made me think about the changing ways agencies are engaging potential clients, partners and employees. Increasingly, they're not settling for create-and-wait tactics, rather they're engaging best-fit audiences with can't-resist content and experiences.

Today's agency marketing is LESS like:

• Spray-and-pray mailers
• Dialing for dollars against generic lists of "creative decision makers"
• Pulpit positions at preaching-to-the-choir conferences
• If-you-build-it-they-will-come agency Web sites

It's MORE like:

• Creating opportunities to share ideas
• Spending time with like minds
• Building value around content
• Making the Web a personal experience

In our fast-moving, client-driven world, agency leaders are investing time and resources in changing the playing field. The results are ... pretty desirable. Check out these two examples.

Space150: Rip up your white paper, host an event

Thought leadership used to come in a 15-page white paper, complete with charming 12-point type and the occasional bar graph. Today, it comes in shared time and ideas. Agencies leveraging their partners  and networks to create immersive events on topics clients are actually interested in.

Check out Space150's DeepSpace Mobile workshop for a great example. 

Cole & Weber: Create deep dive industry experiences

Industry relevance was once a column of client logos. Today, it's a sense of the experience. Of speaking the language, having apropos theories, demonstrating a targeted approach.

Cole & Weber brings a great example to life on this micro site showcasing their experience in the wine category. It's peppered with thought leadership. Has a taste of quality, a note of investment and a nose of confidence.  (Metaphor - and post - officially exhausted).

Breaking through: The power of direct mail

If you were out and about last night, you probably noticed one sure way to break through: burrito giveaways. Chipotle's free burrito event netted crowds stretched around multiple city blocks at the downtown locations here.

But, if you don't have a burrito bar built into your core business strategy, here's another suggestion:

Direct mail.

Sure, it sounds old school, but I'd argue that some of the most engaging DR work going on right now can be found among the newsprint and val-packs right in our mailboxes. It represents opportunity seized from the jaws of faux highlighters and foil starbursts. So attention will be paid!

My favorite is the new catalog work coming out of Neiman Marcus. This seen@nm series targets a younger audience with a more editorial style and breaks out of the usual catalog form factor with a tabloid shape and a great matte stock that just makes the sexy color pop. The quality and content feels exclusive. It not only breaks through -- I'm guessing it's a temporary keeper in a stack of recent issues of Vogue and The New Yorker in bedrooms around America.

My second favorite is totally local, although the concepts are paralleled nationally.

Local example. Take a look at this item:

Couple of buy local stickers and a business card from the Director of Dangerous Ideas at AreYouBrilliant.com. It came in a plain envelope, handwritten with my address and stamped with the brilliant logo.

I was curious and logged on to check it out. (Incidentally: logged on? Total adopter word. Who logs on anymore? Oh, wait, sorry Mack.)

Seems like community action, right? Nope. It's an insurance agent who specializes in local businesses. And, what's more - I wasn't even disappointed to find that out. The Web site features local businesses, tells their stories and positions Ryan Morgan (said director) as a really authentic partner to them.

Fantastic execution.

National example: HBO's True Blood.

This effort was definitely buzz marketing instead of social outreach, but it's still an interesting approach. A slew of other bloggers beat me to posing about it; so, I won't go too deep, but essentially I got a padded envelope in the mail that  contained a "free sample" of a new synthetic blood:

And a decidedly creepy overview of just what an innovation in SNACKING this new choice in blood would be.

The only URL in sight? This creepy destination.

Ok, you win, I'll Google. Turns out it's publicity for True Blood, a new show about vampires premiering the Fall. A name I'll definitely remember. And, an experience that created something between dumbfoundedness and curiosity.

Check out Yes but No but Yes for more.