While working on building a social networking plan yesterday I realized that I was classifying online banners as traditional advertising. Creating a web campaign doesn’t mean buying ad banners. This is no longer true. Of course, CTR can be high if your creative is good enough but how can you deeply engage consumers with a banner? I believe that a strong print campaign can generate the same efficiency. This isn’t about digital or non-digital. It’s about creating good advertising; about creating a product or a business model that will resonate with your target, be talk-worthy and spread online with more efficiency. That is what a digital campaign is really all about – sparking a conversation online by offering something useful and different.
Post by Isabelle Quevilly, Jun 12thPosts Tagged ‘useful’
On a recent trip to Toronto someone raved about www.zipcar.com “wheels when you want them”. You join the service and pick up a car/truck when you need it. Sure this is not a new concept but what is brilliant is the slick user experience. They’ve combined usefulness with cool. Great learnings here on how to delight a customer.
I admit I chuckled when I first saw Apple’s counter-strike to CP+B ad for Microsoft “I’m a PC”. My glee had nothing to do with being a devout Apple user, but for the spots sheer entertainment value. That said, I think the Apple ads simply rev-up the already converted Apple fans. It was a low blow punch to Microsoft’s valiant communication effort of saying “hey there’s a lot of good folk in the world doing great things using PCs”. If I were Microsoft I would stick to the “I’m a PC” platform and work damn hard to push Apple into the frivolous zone by actually doing way, I mean way, more to highlight the great things “PCers” are doing. On top, how about a huge campaign where Microsoft pledges half their ad budget ($150mil) to sponsoring user-generated ideas to get America’s economy on track or solving other important world problems. In other words, generate a “useful cloud” branding effect by investing in sustainable communication efforts that hammer home one message: Microsoft (PC) = Good People doing great things. I’d probably keep my Mac but i would respect PC more.
Apple ad: Response to Microsoft
Post by Thane Calder, Dec 12thI snuck into the press room today on Gladwell’s book tour promoting Outliers and spent 15-minutes pretending I was a journalist for our infamous CloudRaker blog. I would have loved to share my audio conversation but i screwed up my iTalk recording (great iPhone app but it definitely needs some usability fine-tuning).
Although he seemed wiped-out from pitching the same story over and over again, his eyes lit up when I asked him what, in his opinion, was the most under-appreciated yet useful thing out there. He pondered and came back with an enthusiastic reply: “Libraries! They are really useful and forgotten these days. Sure the Internet allows us to find lots of things but a library allows for serendipity to happen. Mostly it allows the serendipity to take root because a library is slower….a time vacuum.”
I think a new article or book is now in the making….”Serendipity in the library”
Malcolm Gladwell talks with CloudRaker Blog “journalist” Thane Calder.
Turn big bad ugly URLs into cute tiny ones with TinyURL.
BEFORE
Check out www.tinyurl.com/
Post by Thane Calder, Aug 21st
