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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 drama of the every day

About a month ago, GirlEffect.org (sponsored by Nike) made speedy work of our pass-along circuit.  Its near-universal acclaim was credited to the simplicity of the design and the pace of the engaging story.

But I think it was something bigger. Or, I guess I should say it was about being bigger.

The easiest objection to make to advertising in any form is - what does it matter? What does the brand of chips I buy, the sports team I cheer for, or the brand of shampoo in my shower* really matter in the big scope of things?

The challenge was even greater for this nonprofit. Can a small contribution really make a difference in a village thousands of miles away? Can someone on a couch in Ohio change the lives of a nation?

The Girl Effect pulls that thread.

Makes it personal.

Blows that little donation up into something that will change the lives of first a girl, then a village, then generations.

Makes it bigger than you. Bigger than itself.

It even lays the gauntlet that husbands and children are bad for girls. That's drama. Hell, yes. I'm in.

The hallmark of creating drama in the everyday is the lump in the throat. The experience so big that you see yourself as having real responsibility to it. You feel like it matters.

And, it doesn't exist just in the work of philanthropy.

Take these two niche favorites:

Cesar's (the dog food cum canine cuisine) I Promise campaign brings the Love Them Back tagline to life. It sets up your pet aisle picks as nothing less than an expression of how much your value your fuzzy friends. It lays down a gauntlet of love.

Or Monster.com's Stork spot. The beautifully shot story that hints at how valuable each life is and asks - are you reaching your potential? Stork replaces the transactional choice of work with nothing short of the meaning of life.  It either lays down a gauntlet of guilt or hope. You pick.

*Baked Sour Cream and Cheddar Lays, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Aveda Sap Moss ... you know, if it matters.

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.

Breaking through: "Crack the code" advertising

That was a term coined by fellow strategist Carey S in a last minute could-have-been-manic-were-we-not-so-intentionally-mellow brainstorm this winter. We were talking about what it is that makes sports ads like Jordan's Clock Tower break through? What takes them from being watched in prime time to being chatted about around the water cooler?

Our theory: It's the respect they pay their audience. They way they bring us in and make us feel clever. The way they reward us for the silly trivia we collect, the seasons of television we watch, the unique perspective we each have on the world

CTC advertising generally falls into two categories:

#1 You're like us.
These campaigns connect with us on a passionate level. They unpack the big things we believe in and serve them up in dramatic ways. They are the corollary to an inside joke - the secret handshake that only people like us would know.

• Example: The Become Legendary Campaign that W + K created for Nike/Jordan. The fourth in the series was this Clock Tower spot ("No Cinderallas") that played in the runup to the tournament and left big proud fans welling up on couches around the country:
  
  

• Example: The Economist. Although BBDO's long-standing well-written in red campaign is probably the clearest example, even the newer campaigns target the pride in target readers. The idea that their sense of savvy and their curiosity make them part of an elite group of global citizens. The sense that they are truly banded together by difference.
  
  

#2 You remember.
It's rewarding to be the first one to figure out the puzzle. To trump your sister by guessing the identity of the murderer halfway through the new episode of Law & Order. To run the board at the annual holiday Trivial Pursuit match.

These "you remember" ads engender similar competition. They tease and hide just enough to make us want to guess it first.

• Example: HP's delightful Personal campaign developed by Goodby, Silverstein and Partners that features a celebrity's hands revealing their online life. Only at the very end - after glimpses and clues - do we find out who's online life it really is.
  

• Example: Discovery Channel's I Love the World brand ad created by 72andSunny. Yeah, it's wildly addictive music, but behind that is the montage to rule all montages. Places, shows, animals. Any number of things to competitively guess at from across the living room. Hey, wasn't that the whale from season 4....?

How it's social: A fellow traveler at Bridge Worldwide has been writing a lot about "marketing with meaning" these past weeks. A concept that may sound philanthropic, but is really just social. It's about creating engagement and content & experiences that people actually want, rather than forcing our messages into aggravated ears.

If you should go looking around online for people's comments about the Jordan spot, you'll find mentions of shivers, of welling up, of wanting to get out and practice. For the Discovery Channel spot, texted sing-alongs. For HP, personal takeoffs. The list goes on. The engagement in these "crack the code" campaigns is truly emotional. Pride, joy, curiosity. Uniquely human. Perfectly translated.

Breaking through: Asheville supports the 5-day weekend

We are - in a word - overwhelmed by choice. So much to read and do and participate in. A lot of it clever and intriguing and really kind of delightful.  To get your message heard, to get past our savvy consumer filters, you need a special kind of engagement - the kind that breaks through.

In this series, I'll share examples of brands that have broken through and show how they used the principles of social to do it.

Kicking off with: Luckie & Company's Five Day Weekend campaign for the Asheville (NC) Convention and Tourism Bureau:

What they were up against: Like most cities that never have red carpet events or celebrity homes to happen by, Asheville has an awareness challenge. How do they make sure vacation planners everywhere know how much great stuff they have to offer?

For years, Asheville went about tourism advertising in the usual way - visit Asheville for X, Y and Z. Calls trickled in. Weekend vacations were had. But, Asheville wanted something more - longer vacations, more interest, higher engagement.

So they challenged a number of agencies - including Luckie - to come up with the idea that would help them break through.

What they did: Luckie knew that it was going to take more than bucolic photography of green mountains and the promise of a ride on the rapids to put Asheville on the map. So they looked for an angle that would get people talking about something people are naturally passionate about: getting a break from their demanding worklife.

The pitch & the eventual campaign was called Friends of the Five Day Weekend. And it was a call to stop working longer and harder. It was time to take leisure back.

Through newspaper ads, posters, sandwich boards, TV spots, and radio ads, Luckie drove the curious and overworked to learn more on a Web site, sign petitions of support and even attend rallies in key cities.

What happened next: 7000 people signed an online petition that was sent on to Congress and the presidential primary contenders. Hundreds joined homegrown Five Day Weekend groups on Facebook. Average people bought and wore the brand. They not only attended the planned rallies, but some even set up their own rally. Hundreds of bloggers - including the feisty Donald - blogged. And - even with no concentrated media outreach effort - Michael Medved invited the campaign spokesman on for a lengthy debate about the economics of the issue. Fox News did a national piece on it, focusing on overwork but also interviewing the head of Asheville tourism. And, the AP ran with it.

Importantly, the story of Asheville came through. Not only as the transparent sponsor of the "movement," but also as a place where people do care about the very real issue of work-life balance.

Oh, and there's this: long after the campaign ran, this little gem popped up.

How it's social: This campaign has literal social elements - like the Facebook groups, blogging, etc. But its success is arguably built on the solid social principles of what makes WOM happen. To borrow from Steve Knox, CEO of Tremor, it was a story that was true to the core of the brand and disruptive to the conversation. The kind of social marketing that creates results, not just impressions. It was something that people could care about and it was easy for them to pass on.

Break through? Absolutely.