Trademark infringement, or brand advocacy? Before you release the hounds with a nasty  cease and desist, consider this approach that the Campbell’s Marketing Manager took over 46 years ago. Community managers and social media markerters should take note, this is how you do it!

Campbell SOUP Company
CAMDEN 1, NEW JERSEY

May 19, 1964

Mr. A. Warhol
1342 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York

Dear Mr. Warhol:

I have followed your career for some time. Your work has evoked a great deal of interest here at Campbell Soup Company for obvious reasons.

At one time I had hoped to be able to acquire one of your Campbell Soup label paintings – but I’m afraid you have gotten much too expensive for me.

I did want to tell you, however, that we admired your work and I have since learned that you like Tomato Soup. I am taking the liberty of having a couple of cases of our Tomato Soup delivered to you at this address.

We wish you continued success and good fortune.

Cordially,

(Signed, ‘William P. MacFarland’)

William P. MacFarland
Product Marketing Manager

(Image from the collection of Billy Name, via Warholstars.org and lettersofnote.com )
Disclaimer: Campbell’s is a client of Proximity Canada

Tags: andy warhol, brand advocacy, cambell's soup, campbell, great branding, influencer, marketing, outreach, pop culture, social media

1. Benchmark: How many rainbows are there normally?

2. Determine key performance indicators:

• Volume: “Double rainbows”
• Reach: “All the way”
• Sentiment: “WOOOHOOOOHOOO”

2. Hypothesize: “What does it mean?”

3. Report: “OMG, double rainbows all the way!”

4. When possible, replicate success: “Triple Rainbow!”

That’s all there is really.

Tags: advertising, double rainbow, marketing, measurement, metrics, rainbows, social media, yosemitebear

Facebook is about transparency. What about those who would choose anonymity?

In recent weeks I have talked with dozens of youth who are very concerned about identity on the internet.   Teens are afraid of their future reputations. They don’t want their lives to be limited by half-naked photos, comments, art and other forms of expressive content they posted in their exuberant youth. They know all this content can be indexed by Google and searchable for their entire careers. This limits their creativity in extraordinary ways.  But when creativity gets limited, people get more creative. Lately, teens seem more interested in belonging to a website that both encourages participation and protects their anonymity.

On Facebook, fake names are becoming more and more common. These names can range from purposeful misspellings to complete aliases.  This simple edit makes a person a lot harder to find, friended and/or tagged in content. Even if you are discovered and tagged, it’s not likely that a future employer will spend the time to investigate aliases. Ironically, changing your name can give you more control over your online identity. There are some who take these new freedoms to extreme levels.

The Anonymous (aka “Anons”) are seeking even more extreme platforms for personal freedom, expression and disruption. By posing as a single collective identity on the internet, Anons remove all personal accountability and consequence in the digital and physical worlds. Personal expression can happen without repercussions, so anything goes. This take challenges the conventional limits of free speech not by the approach, but by infinite scaleability and momentum the web enables this movement to have.

Mischief thrives in the Anonymous web. Pornography, naked hatred, homophobia and rampant sexism are as common here as all other facets of life. Despite it’s follies, most internet memes can be attributed to the anonymous web. Child pornographers have been hunted down and exposed by the Anons. This movement offers the same creative, youthful, rebellious edge as the early days of  rock’n'roll and hip hop did. Anons are typically anti-establishment, big on the rebellion and sometimes relentlessly vicious for reasons from very important to almost no reason at all. Just ask the Church of Scientology or Justin Bieber.

Urban Dictionary, (a “wiki dictionary” that defines slang, web and street language via crowdsourcing) provides definitions of “Anon” written by the Anonymous.

Here are some interesting ones:

• n. Anon or ‘non’ is an abbreviated form of the word ‘Anonymous’. Used to refer to a member or members of the internet-based free speech movement Anonymous.

• Anon does not have a stated purpose. Anon is anarchy, urges and untamed mental impulse, harmful to anyone whose inhibitions and sense of decency are still intact.

• Anons meet on internet message boards and networking sites to protest and plan pickets educating the public on violations of free speech and other human rights.

• Contrary to popular belief “Anon” is not any anonymous stranger on the internet. Anon is the hive mind of deviant fantasies and crude jokes inhabiting the subconscious of hermits, burnouts, stoners and suicidal shut-ins everywhere.

• Anon has a soft spot, not only in his clearly unsatisfying real life but also in his love for mudkipz , longcat and baww ing about his loneliness.

• You will the anarchic entity that is Anon if you spend enough time on the internet. He frequents many a venue – in hopes of adding a touch of chaos to the lives of others – for instance the anonymous chat site, Omegle .

• Anon does not forgive.

Anons can range from simple commenters to radical activists, both online and offline. Many extreme Anons are cut from the same cloth as “hackers,” but with distinctive differences.

1. Anons are typically content hackers not technology hackers. They are not interested in the contents of your hard drive, nor are they interested in robbing you of your identity. They thrive on the memes and conversations they’ve sparked.
2. Anons are obviously not looking for credit the way hackers do. They don’t claim to be motivated by cool. They are motivated by freedom, and they feel they must hide their identities to truly be free. They are a collective and they are growing in size.

Anons are, in many ways, un-definable. They seem to be motivated by the id rather than the ego. They are sometimes creepy, disturbing, hilarious, insightful, disgusting, revolting and almost always compelling.

Every culture needs a counter-culture to encourage evolution and self reflection. I think this may be the beginning of the most important behaviour shift we’ll see on the internet for the next several years. The Anonymous will certainly continue to test and challenge the limits of free speech without the accountability of identity.

(Ironically, the anonymous creator of this video was lambasted by anonymous commenters for trying to define what anonymous meant. )

So how do we sell soap to the Anonymous generation? Very carefully.

Tags: 4chan, anon, Anonymous, facebook, free speech, radical trust

Is Facebook a utility? Could it be positioned like a phone bill? Although it may seem inconceivable, try to imagine a world in which you paid for access to Facebook. Not a lot, just a buck a month. Would you stay? Would you go? This is the conversation I’m hearing with regards to Facebook’s potential business model.

But before you answer, consider a different  scenario.

E-commerce is beginning to emerge more and more on Facebook. You can buy game credits for apps like Mafia Wars, for example, and there are direct sales programs popping up on fan pages for services like “Off the Wall”. Yesterday, Disney launched an app that pre-sells tickets to Toy Story 3. These initiatives are bubbling up amazing opportunities, but still lack the scale that Facebook has the capability to deliver.

Facebook is rumoured to be considering its own currency – think Paypal meets the US treasury meets your bank. In this scenario, you would be able to buy and sell with Facebook currency. I think of it as exchanging your “Bucks” for “Zucks”. You could manage this account with your current profile and have one-click shopping – using this Facebook currency around the web on sites like eBay, Etsy, Zappos and other leading e-commerce platforms.

Now imagine a personal e-commerce app for your own profile. Use it to have a garage sale and dump your old Ikea lamps to family, friends and friends of friends. Sell your car, sell your house … you name it.  Even expand your reach with e-commerce enabled widgets.

You ship and you manage, but Facebook deals with the money, exchange rates and security – each payment made to you directly deposited it in your account in Facebook tender. You can spend it or exchange it at the current rate for your country.  Do you see a use for that?

I think people would use it – a lot of people. Although Paypal and others have tried, we’ve never seen a global e-commerce currency exchange find success. Typically these platforms have been limited to one or a few sites and could not easily scale internationally. Many of them rely on the US dollar as the base. Not a good bet, particularly in this economy. Boo.com tried international currency exchange – they spent billions to go bankrupt trying to figure out this one. Amazon has an amazing affiliate program, but it’s about selling their stuff for the most part, and has a very steep learning curve to get involved. Etsy is great for peer-to-peer e-commerce, but they take a cut from every sale and are very niche. eBay works well with Paypal, but Paypal also takes a cut, as does eBay, making it costly to end users. All of them have an issue with international scale, something Facebook has no problem with.

Facebook has 500 million members. They are outnumbered only by China and India in population. They don’t have to charge for profiles in order to make money, nor do they need to skim off the top of P2P transactions.  They could become their own bank, make hundreds of millions in exchange rates, hundreds of millions in access fees, hundreds of millions in apps and digital downloads to go along with their hundreds of millions in ad revenue.

And what if “Zucks” were accepted in brick and mortar retail stores?

Facebook is uniquely positioned to deliver the P2P e-commerce of Etsy, beyond a specific vertical. They can deliver the affiliate program of Amazon, without the skimpy return. The scale of eBay, without skimming off each sale. And the ease and trust of PayPal, without the issue of global scale.

Now reconsider paying a buck a month for this Facebook service.

How much do you spend on your bank and credit cards every month? Do you need them all? A buck seems kind of cheap now doesn’t it? Even cheaper with a name like “Zuck”.

Facebook will inevitably charge us for something on their platform.  I speculate that this currency service could be the beginning of something very profitable for Facebook, and at the same time, useful for the web.

Of course, this is all speculation.

Tags: best practices, currency, ecommerce, facebook, international trade, Mark Zuckerberg, social commerce, social media, zucks

Adobe Ad on Wired.com spotted May 13th, 2010

“We love Apple, We Love choice
We love Flash and HTML5
We love our 3 million developers
We love authoring code only once
We love all platforms and devices
What we don’t love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web.”

The gloves are off.

The ad links to this article.

Update: This was spotted on the internet today. Unsure if it is from Apple, but it is pretty darn funny:

I think we can expect this to turn into a full on MEME.

Tags: adobe, apple, flash, geek wars, html5, ipad, iphone

Pringle is a schickimicki fashion brand from Scotland. They’ve made cardigan sweaters for nearly 200 years and as such, their advertising is categorically predictable. Think Tilda Swinton in an evening gown spouting incoherent poetry as she stumbles through the woods, scales castle walls, swims out to sea … sigh.

The fashion business has taken itself oh, so seriously for so long that when they take a risk, it pops.

Radical trust can reveal itself in interesting ways. That’s how I came to see the animated short below by David Shrigly. Commissioned by Pringle of Scotland and screened on Jan. 18th 2010, the film was made to celebrate Pringle’s return to Milan Fashion Week.

They trusted this guy to retell the Pringle legacy? Have a watch:

I love it.

I love it because:

• it is honest, (but a tad exaggerated)
• it is a lot of fun (Scottish accent = funny)
• it depicts a web interface that the user can toggle between “Gay” or “Straight”
• it holds a mirror to the fashion business. Something they need more of.
• it trusts the public to see through the jokes and dry humor, and that we will “get it”

Lesson?

Trust the audience to see it as you do. Say it in a way they would.

A radical do.

Hat tip KnitHacker

Tags: advertising, creative, fashion, funny, milan fashion week, playful, pringle, radical trust, scotland, strategy, video, viral

You don’t need me to tell you why all of this is awesome. 

Enjoy:

Google Chrome – Artsy Fartsy explanation of the Google Chrome offering. Awesomesauce!

Google Goggles – A new mobile Google mash-up tool tied together with Augmented reality. Awesomesauce!

Google – Real Time Search – New service that helps you determine what is happening right now! Awesomesauce!

Tags: chrome, fun, Googe, google goggle, search stories, video, viral video

The idea is based on the notion that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or something entirely different – the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

So far they’ve transformed a staircase into piano keys, complete with sound as you climb. The new thinking encouraged 66% fewer people to take the escalator.

They’ve also rigged up a garbage can to sound like your trash deposit is falling hundreds of feet. This simple idea increased usage by over 40kg a day.

While they continue to execute other fun ideas, The Fun Theory folks are currently crowd-sourcing more ideas through a contest.

Keep an eye on this evolving case study… a sense of play is a key principle for Web 2.0 platforms and this is one to watch …

http://thefuntheory.com/

Tags: brand, crowdsourcing, marketing, radical do, social media, strategy, volkswagen, Youtube

I’m not the first to call bullshit on this entire incident. My wife, a former “big label” gal, called foul from the moment it went down. She has spent too much time in music industry boardrooms not to suspect the whole thing a PR stunt.

A quick search confirms her evidence: Taylor Swift’s signed to Big Machine Records and Kanye West to Island Def Jam — both distributed by Universal Music Group. Taylor Swift is holding at #2 in Billboard this week, MTV Video awards are relevant again (at least for the moment) and Universal is laughing all the way to the bank.

Not to mention this is Kanye’s M.O.  Remember his statements about George Bush on a live TV Katrina benefit? Right or wrong (although it was hard to disagree with him in that instance) his single (appropriately named “Gold Digger”) lit up after that move. Kanye West is back in the charts again this week.

In the blog post “The Death of Marketing”, legendary music blogger Bob Lefsetz writes:

“The public has been manipulated so many times, that when something extraordinary happens, that becomes instantly viral in our networked world, many people cross their arms and say not fucking real.

Who’d blame them?  What with Borat and Eminem at the previous MTV awards show.

Sure, the ratings for the VMAs were comparatively good, up from last year.  But isn’t focusing on the immediate bottom line, going for instant results, what fucked up not only the music industry, but the whole economy?”

This entire incident is very suspicious. Regardless whether this was planned or not, we are  buying the records and talking about it. Do the means justify the ends? If this was a marketing stunt, it was an amazingly successful social media one.

Beyond the mainstream feeding frenzy, the online conversation has been abuzz;  from the Imma let you finish meem, to various websites and mashup videos that have popped up over this incident. They are plentiful. Kanye was a trending topic on Twitter more than once this week, and we bloggers are still writing about it (guilty as charged).

You have to wonder about the sustainability of a business that requires this kind of stunt to build relevance, planned or not.  Remember when it was about good music?

Lefsetz concludes:

In order to truly make it today, you’ve got to be honest, you’ve got to have the goods, which have been honed over years.  Otherwise, you’re just another scammer trying to make a buck.  And the public knows.  Major media companies are complaining about the audience, the mistrust involved.  Well, if you were manipulated so many times would you still play along?

If you want to make it today, focus on marketing last.  And know that online, greatness spreads.  Could take a while to catch fire, but if you’re great on a sustained basis, you’ll make it.  Although making it might mean being known by a coterie, not everybody, and having one house, not three, still…who’s entitled to all that?  The days of more, more, more are over.  It’s just that those in the media haven’t realized it yet.

Here’s one of those remixes, earning over 2 million views in the last 72 hours:

The biggest lesson I have learned from this? You can succeed in social media yet fail in radical trust.

Tags: big machine records, def jam, island records, kanye west, MTV Video awards, music business, radical trust, record labels, taylor swift, universal music

Much has been written about the decline of journalism over the last several years. Major publications like the New York Times in the US and The Globe and Mail in Canada are now competing with millions of bloggers and citizen journalists for share of voice in an ever-fragmented media landscape.

Some traditional journalists are quick to call out blogs for lack of ethics, fact checking and balance. Ironically, I know very few bloggers who would consider themselves journalists, so perhaps this criteria to measure them is the wrong approach. In fact, most bloggers I’ve followed criticize journalists for the very same issues around ethics, fact checking and balance.

Rather than pointing fingers at the bloggers, perhaps journalists ought to start looking at their own inner-workings.

Journalism is in an absolute mess right now. Frankly, the problem is not the blogosphere or the fragmented media landscape – it’s a lack of respect for the pillars of the profession and a lack of trust in its readership. Traditional outlets have put the dollar before the message for way too long and so many of the stories are extremely biased because many journalists refuse to ask the hard questions – is it because the gatekeepers are afraid of the consequences that often come with truth? It’s absurd that cable networks call themselves fair and balanced and it’s troubling to see the subtle placement of opinion/editorial features on the front page of almost every newspaper. This is not fulfilling the self-declared “Guardians of Democracy” mandate we’re so often reminded of. We need real demonstrations of trustworthiness from our media sources, not empty declarations of “News you can trust”.

To quote a line from the film “Spanglish”- “Lately, your low self-esteem is just good common sense.”

The real problem is not in the business model; it’s in the complete disintegration of the relationship with the readership. Being a journalist, above all else, should be a quest for the truth. In a time when so much news is wrought with misinformation and bias, people will be attracted to truth – it’s the only path to relevance. Once journalism is relevant again, it can be profitable.

Tags: journalism, media, social media, trust