Is the Digital Strategist/Producer team, the new Art Director/Copywriter?

In the future, I could quite easily see myself being set up in a Digital Strategist/Producer team similar to the dynamic of an Art Director/Copywriter team of a traditional Ad Agency.

Media is the creative in so many circumstances in Digital and without a gun Producer being able to work out the feasibility of your ideas, you’re really nothing.

I was lucky enough to be paired up with Cate Mathers for a number of projects over the last six months. She was in a producers role at The Population even know she was clearly more of a strategist. I found as a team we were able to produce some great strategies that we were then able to translate into ideas and turn around and implement.

Unfortunately, Cate is onto bigger and better things moving over to OMD as a Integrations Strategist. However, I am looking forward to the future of the Strategist/Producer team. It comes as no surprise that there is currently a high demand in Sydney for good digital producers.

Case Study: Running a branded Facebook Page on small to no budget (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a guest blog post from Kevin Lippy who has successfully run a branded Facebook Page aimed at Backpackers travelling through Australia. He has used the great analogy of the Big Lebowski to show the lesson learnt from this.

5. “I don't roll on Shabbos!” – Walter Sobchak
Actually, with your company’s name at stake and by giving our fans free reign to post links, pictures and videos on our wall, you kind of have to roll (or at least check on it) always. Yes even Saturdays. Also, we knew that by opening ourselves up in this way, meant it was inevitable that other third parties would use the page to promote themselves. Like ‘El Duderino’ himself, we have taken the pacifist approach, and have decided to do absolutely nothing about this (so far), because:
a. While their content hasn’t been cool, so far it has been harmless
b. They have never been our direct competitors
c. It would be hypocritical - as we had seeded info on other pages
And...

6. “This is what happens….” – Walter Sobchak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCcKBcZzGdA - (censorship on purpose)

7. “Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish. Those…. amateurs!” – Walter Sobchak
In order to meet our objectives we had to generate interest. We went about this by opening up to other people in the industry by grouping together a prize that included 15 Nights accommodation, a 2000km bus pass, a Skydive and a Surf Camp. Being inclusive, also made our Page sexier as all of a sudden we had hip content to post like skydives, surf safaris and nightclubs. To enter we couldn’t have made it simpler. All someone had to do was:
1. Become our fan
2. Write on our wall “The best thing about backpacking Oz is…”

We promoted the Page in 3 main ways:
1. A Launch party - we co-hosted a night at a Backpacker Bar and had a door prize draw for anyone who became a fan on the night.
2. We created some signage and asked Hostel managers to promote it.
3. We created in Facebook ads. These are the shizzle! One of my core objectives is to get to my customers before they have even left their country! Please tell me another way I could do this for the price I have with Facebook ads?

8. “Where’s the F***ing money Lebowski?” – The Dude
Laugh if you will… but I believe that I have evidence that this campaign has been monetized in some ways.

Exhibit A:

This was a question, posted on a spin off ‘group’ created by one of our fans, with the purpose of asking other fans whether they were going to be staying at one of our Hostels this New Years Eve. From this I see two good news stories:
1. A random fan created a Facebook “group”, unprompted by us, positively talking about our brand.
2. By the time I had even seen this, Carolyn’s question had been answered by another fan, the situation had been resolved, and as a consequence she was able to book with us (= revenue $). This had all occurred on the Group’s wall!

My all time favourite part of Facebook pages is “Interactions.”
I find it strangely exciting to know that exactly 39% of my Fans are Females between the ages 18-24. More importantly, I can monitor the amount of page views, fans, user-generated content uploaded, fan interactions and even how many photos have been looked at.

We launched www.facebook.com/backpackingmate just over 3 weeks ago (oh yeah... make sure you get a vanity URL… you just need 100 fans). After all is said and done we are a bed… not a band, and are not something that many people already have an existing emotional connection to. I am stoked with the amount of fans we have, and even more with how they have interacted with the page. I am still deciding whether it is something that should be evaluated within the context of a brief campaign, or something that will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

Case Study: Running a branded Facebook Page on small to no budget (Part 1)

This is a guest blog post from Kevin Lippy who has successfully ran a branded Facebook Page (Backpacking Mate) aimed at backpackers travelling through Australia. He has used the great analogy of The Big Lebowski to describe the lessons learnt.


“Smokey, this is not 'Nam…. There are rules” – Walter Sobchak

With a budget of "as close to zero as possible" and with the experience in running a Facebook campaign to match, it was pretty obvious that I was never going to create “The Dude” of Pages. I needed to shoot from the hip… like a ‘gun-toting Jewish-convert with post traumatic Stress Disorder’ such as Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in ‘The Big Lebowski.’ But before I could roll… I needed to learn the rules.

1. “Donny you’re out of your element” – Walter Sobchak
I was naive, impressionable and amped to do a campaign exclusively on Twitter because I thought it would be a great way of reaching my core market, 18-34 yr old international backpackers. In my defence this was at a time where I was attending Tweet breakfasts, helping Ashton to his1,000,000 followers and refusing to speak to people unless it involved less than 140 characters! It was the future after all and pretty much a no brainer ! Then one day whilst asking myself “What are you doing now?” I had an epiphany: “@KevLippy Do some #Analysis 4 the campaign!”

Incredibly, what I found was that only 50% of my target market even knew what Twitter was at the time… and only 14% were on it, let alone the ones that were actually ‘active’ users. My own intuition told me that 99% were more likely to have a box of goon in their hand than a mobile device, which is pretty much required to handle the immediacy of Tweets. Conversely, 83% are on Facebook, and not just passively. For example 70% of backpackers use Facebook to upload their photos. I also quickly learned that Facebook ‘Pages’ were the way forward, and that Facebook groups were dead. while I created a Facebook page campaign, I did end up incorporating Twitter, primarily to facilitate messages to others in the travel industry.

2: “The Dude abides” – The Dude
In building my page I scoped out my favourite pages and tried to model my page on theirs. This proved difficult as ‘The Dude(s)’ of Pages, such as Discovery Channel and Red Bull often had purpose built apps. This was out of the question for my budget. So I specialised in finding the coolest free apps (there were plenty!). My favourite is “FBML” which is essentially a box that you can have HTML on your side-wall.

3. “I’m not Mr Lebowski. You’re Mr Lebowski. I’m The Dude” – The Dude
The average backpacker probably perceives us as just ‘a bed.’ It’s not like many people would actively look to become a fan of our brand ‘just because.’ So I decided to create the campaign based around a character called “Backpacking Mate” which;
a. Humanised us – this opened the door to us joining the conversation. It allows us to talk with (not to) our fans. We try not to push-market but are still able to get key messages across subtly.

b. Allowed us to be everywhere - We can send Backpacking Mate from Broome - Byron - Belgrade in a matter of minutes, being that he is an animated fictional character, and that his preferred mode of transport is Photoshop. This also keeps him interesting.


4. “Nobody F***s with The Jesus” – Jesus Quintana
In this regard I consider “The Jesus” to be our “Fans”. Whenever I post anything I ask myself “If I was a backpacker would I want to see this?” I try my best to only speak when I have a significant deal, discount, or a valuable piece of information that I believe will benefit them. Company agendas, inevitably get in the way… but I do try.

Part 2 will be delivered on Wednesday

Advertising's Young Minds: The top 27 blogs of people under 27 (September Update)

As promised here is the update of the Advertising Young Minds list: The Top 27 (53) blogs of advertising bloggers under 27. I will do the next update in December, if you are eligible for the list, drop me your URL, country and age in the comments.

Blog Name		Country	Google Reader	Tech Authority Score	Tech Reactions 10	Total
1	Jack Cheng (25)	US	1021	167	209	1397
2	Noah Brier (27)	US	729	309	87	1125
3	Young PR (25)	AUS	751	174	63	988
4	Digital Buzz (24)	AUS	612	111	63	786
5	Adspace Pioneers (24)	AUS	244	337	82	663
6	The Lost Jacket	USA	237	55	144	436
7	Jye Smith (23)	AUS	56	260	27	343
8	Heron Preston (26)	US	238	51	13	302
9	Selective Amnesia (27)	IND	222	33	11	266
10	Yaybia (22-24)	USA	179	58	19	256
11	Ryan Stephens Marketing	USA	146	92	0	238
12	Cellar Door (27)	US	122	63	28	213
13	The-Ad-Pit (27)	UK	120	53	21	194
14	Confessions of a Wannabe Adman (25)	UK	112	61	17	190
15	Creative in London (26)	UK	140	13	28	181
16	Pigs Don’t Fly (20)	AUS	52	95	24	171
17	The Spinks Blog(21)	USA	80	64	21	165
18	Adgrads (25)	UK	103	14	20	137
19	Way Cool Jnr (25)	AUS	86	50	0	136
20	Everything's Better With Brentter	USA	60	48	17	125
21	Nicola Davies (25)	UK	73	36	13	122
22	Advertising Pawn (26)	FRA	29	19	48	96
23	Trend Planner (24)	UK	46	16	9	71
24	Nil Desperandum (27)	HK	19	34	7	60
25	Don´t go dizzy (?)	ROM	42	7	9	58
26	More Stupid than the others (20)	UK	50	5	2	57
27	Lexy Klain (25)	AUS	33	14	6	53
28	Michael Karnjanaprakorn (27)	US	32	11	5	48
29	OMG With Emily (?)	AUS	26	13	4	43
30	CIIMS (25)	AUS	27	8	5	40
31	Who is in control of your brand (25)	AUS	5	8	25	38
32	Quintessentially Digital (25)	AUS	22	9	2	33
33	Lauren Fernandez (?)	USA	23	9	0	32
34	Stuff That Is Relevant	?	31	1	0	32
35	Joely Righteous (23)	AUS	11	11	8	30
36	I hate Ads	AUS	22	5	1	28
37	Refined Geek (24)	AUS	15	7	1	23
38	Digestion (?)	US	10	8	4	22
39	Gruen Transfer (21)	AUS	11	6	1	18
40	Who put the devil in you? (?)	AUS	12	4	0	16
41	Love number two (	AUS	9	5	0	14
42	Maloney on marketing (26)	AUS	6	4	4	14
43	Post Modern PR	UK	4	5	4	13
44	Kruppy Rants (27)	AUS	9	3	0	12
45	Michael Allison	CAN	9	3	0	12
46	Simon Says (20)	AUS	3	4	4	11
47	Accidental Thinking (26)	US	9	0	0	9
48	The Bottom Rung (22)	CAN	2	4	2	8
49	Frank, Hayley and the circus (22)	AUS	4	3	1	8
50	Another Advertising Wanker (26)	AUS	2	3	0	5
51	Chris Kamen (26)	?	4	0	1	5
52	Think Chimp	AUS	2	0	0	2
53	AMC Guy (21)	USA	0	0	0	0
54	Sidere (26)	SPA	0	0	0	0

Requirements to be on the list
1. Your blog must be written in english

2. Your blog must have been active for the past 3 months

3. Your blog must show some original thinking, it´s not enough to have a blog with ads to be in this list.

4. You must be 27 years old or under

5. You must work or want to work in advertising or any other marketing communications specialty, it doesn´t matter if you´re a planner, copywriter, art director, account executive or else.

6. You can only have one blog in the rank.

How grassroots band Short Stack used online to go to No.1 on the ARIAs

This is a guest post by Emily Copeland who is the Strategic Integrations Manager for Channel V (MCN - Music) and writes the music marketing blog, OMG with Emily which also has a radio segment on FBi 94.5 - Thursdays at 8.15am.

This week will forever be remembered in musical history. After 7 weeks at number one on the ARIA album charts, we saw Michael Jackson’s reign toppled by an Australian emo band from Budgewoi called Short Stack.

Not only did Short Stack push Michael Jackson into second place, but this release was their very first album, and it debuted at #1!

So how did a group of kids from the coast overthrow the King of Pop?

Back in the 80s, before the members of Short Stack were born, bands kicked off their careers playing in pubs. But in 2005 Short Stack were still too young to tour the pub circuit, so they began placing their tracks on MySpace and entering band competitions such as Youthrock.

As their popularity on MySpace began to grow, the band extended their online presence to include Short Stack TV on YouTube, Facebook fan pages, Bebo, Absolute Punk and Twitter to name just a few.

Short Stack now have almost 60,000 friends on MySpace, and over 10,000 followers on Twitter. They have fan pages for not just the band, but for each individual band member. And back in 2008 they had so many views of their videos on YouTube that they beat Britney Spears to have the number one video of the day.

But lots of bands use social media to promote themselves… how have Short Stack managed to become one of the most popular Australian bands on MySpace, without having released an album until this week? What have they done differently to garner so much support online? How have they turned fans into fanatics?


Graph source

Short Stack used the power of community, credibility and accessibility. And they used their link to a geographic community to strengthen their online community presence.

Community - Embrace Multiple Communities, Real World and Virtual
Short Stack’s home town of Budgewoi, is on the NSW Central Coast. It’s not a large place, but there are a lot of teenagers living nearby – and not a huge amount for them to entertain themselves with. Short Stack used the power of geographic community to initially harness this local young and somewhat-isolated crowd, and make them feel a part of something bigger. They tapped them into the emerging Short Stack online community, and gave them something to get behind when there wasn’t much else for a teenage emo to do. And from it's beginnings on the Central Coast, Short Stack’s music began to spread via online communities around Australia.

Credibility, Credibility, Credibility
The typical emo fashion is to go against the grain, disobey parents, ignore mainstream media, and not get sucked in by large commercial corporations – so Short Stack’s low budget marketing and the fact that they weren’t backed by a major record label at first, made them even more attractive to their fans. The band never discouraged illegal downloading of their tracks – understanding that getting large numbers of people to hear the music was more important initially than trying to push a small number of sales. They boys seemed ‘real’ and relatable which all added to their credibility.

Accessibility - Identify, Understand and Interact with your Audience
Short Stack were lucky that with their long hair and somber emo looks, they appealed directly to teenage girls. The band put their efforts into online communities where their demographic were already spending a lot of time, and tailored their messages directly to this audience. Short Stack have also made themselves accessible – and their fans love them for it! Fans can see the effort that Short Stack go to in responding to comments online, posting regular videos, and releasing free tracks, and they are happy to reciprocate.

It was this reciprocity that saw Short Stack take out Channel [V]’s Oz Artist of the Year 2008. According to lead singer, Shaun Diviney "Our fans are very, very rabid and really into what we do. If we ask them to vote for us they'll do it furiously and really get behind us," (source). Those fans got behind them in 2008 to the tune of 400,000 votes – to see them beat Silverchair and The Presets for the award. Those aren't just fans... they're fanatics. And it is fanatics you need if you want your debut release to topple the King of Pop.

10 historical moments in Youtube Advertising

After my post a year ago on 12 historical Social Media Marketing moments, I thought I would follow it up with historical moments of Youtube.

1. LonelyGirl15 and Heshey’s (June 2006)

In the Lonelygirl15 episode "Truckstop Reunion" the first branded integration on Youtube happened, it featured the characters eating and displaying Hershey's Icebreaker's Sours Gum.

2. Introduce Brand Channels (August 2006)
Companies were given the opportunity to create their own programming. One of the most renowned branded Youtube accounts BlendTec is actually not a branded channel, proving that a sponsored channel is not always needed. Blendtec was set up as just a normal account. Recently Ford Fiesta and Blendtec teamed up to create the monster which is an ad within an ad.


3. Youtube acquired by Google (October 2006)
Google Inc. announces that it had acquired YouTube for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. Advertisers get excited that Google will be able to put a good advertising back end into Youtube.

4. Dove Evolution Video launched (October 2006)


5. Youtube creates the Partners Program (May 2007)
Youtube starts paying their best content creators. A number of top 100 most subscribed now get paid a percentage of the earnings of money made from advertising sold next to their content.

This week they have come out and announced special Partnerships for content creators that go viral, so the JK wedding dance video would now theoretically make money for the newly married.

6. Burger King sponsor the Youtube only ‘Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy’ (August 2008)
It becomes the third most successful b randed channel on Youtube



7. Fred cracks a million subscribers (April 2009)
"Fred" has been sponsored since its inception by the Zipit Wireless Messenger (Z2). He has generated in excess of $100,000 from ad revenue and sponsorship.

8. Youtube puts a halt to third party ads (May 2009)
YouTube put a halt to brand placement advertising in YouTube videos, as they were advertisements that didn’t bring YouTube any revenue. Any partner who was found to do brand placement would lose their contract. This puts an end to Vloggers dealing directly with brands. Example of Vlogger direct deal - starring Lisa Nova


9. Ugly Carl Jnr Burger Deal (June 2009)
Google brokered a deal with Carls Jnr Burger where they would get more than 10 of the top 50 subscribed vloggers to create videos about how they eat their burger. It was a cluttered mess, which made most people resent the stars and Carls Jnr.


10. Still waiting…
I’ve been waiting three years for a proper advertising model which doesn’t require a minimum media spend of $20,000! Take a note from Facebook’s Advertising Model. Get your shit together.

Is there any moments I have missed?

Facebook Pages the new EDM solution.

Using a mixture of Facebook Advertising and a solid content schedule is making Facebook Pages the new killer electronic direct marketing solution for a number of brands. I have just been working on growing the Grinspoon Facebook Page. Using a smart advertising and content schedule, I was able to grow the Page by 8,000 fans in 20 days.

The following are four reasons why most brands should change to a Facebook Page EDM strategy on the proviso their target market are there.

1. Recruitment
The recent Facebook Advertising Page upgrade have made it a very effective recruitment model, they now allow you to create Facebook Ads, with a ‘one click become a fan button’ functionality.

2. News Feed
Pages have now been upgraded so that you can update straight to fans news feed via a status updates.

3. Insights
When were you able to pull insights off the back end of your email database which gave you breakdowns of your audience like Facebook Insights?

4. One click subscription
If you did get insights like this, then you probably made them enter a number of fields and not just a one click subscribe button.