Dentyne’s Anti-Facebook “Make Face Time” Campaign Encourages Us To Get Real.
So I was deep into editing Trend 6: The Return of Real & The Urgency of Touch for my upcoming book when I discovered this refreshing (pun intended) new campaign from gum-giant Dentyne and ad agency, McCann. The creative suggests we log off occasionally to go out and “make face time” with a friend.
“We’ve got nothing against the internet, but when people are surfing the web, they’re missing the best part of life — being together.”
It’s a compelling concept, one that reminds me a little of the YouTube phenom Free Hugs, now a user-generated-content classic with 33,644,908 views. The idea is made all the more engaging by the Make Face Time website that automatically shuts down after 3 minutes. The site also features a ‘Smiley Chamber of Doom’ intended to smash to smithereens those icons of fakery.
I’ve been kvetching lately about the importance of being a real friend during these recessionary times rather than just a Friended Friend. Then Jason Anello, Yahoo Buzz’s Ideologist, gave a great talk at the WOMMA Summit last week on the importance of connecting the online and offline worlds –and mentioned the increasing value of touch. Another project reminded me that massage therapy has been in explosive growth mode, jumping to $11 billion a year industry.
Then there was this weekend’s MotrinGate, in which Moms railed against the baby-wearing, baby-bonding experience being labeled ‘a fashion accessory.’ Mombotv.com has a nice post on this age-old practice, especially the way health workers in many developing countries promote skin to skin contact between mother and newborn. Didn’t we all write termpapers in college citing the wire-mother-monkeys?
Author Desmond Morris says, “Something special happens when two people touch each other physically, whether it be a handshake, a pat on the back, or a slap on the face.”
Obviously I am a huge advocate of the life-changing, life-building, boundary shattering Internet. But I am also a huge advocate of getting the hell offline and LOL-ing the real way.
Does Spreading The Retail Gloom Help Us or Hurt Us?
I have very mixed feelings about an email I received from a friend early this evening.
On one hand, I appreciate the warning. I appreciate the sentiment about celebrating the holidays with family and friends, not bling and things.
But the business person in me can’t help but think that these email blasts only spread the gloom-and-doom that’s already keeping us out of the stores. Yes, we absolutely should slip the Visa cards into a drawer and head toward the mall bearing cash — a new study says 22.8% of us plan to, up from last year — or use our debit cards, like 41.5% plan to do. A return (even if possible) to the bloated excess of the boom-boom years doesn’t work either. But some of us believe firmly that innovation and new opportunities can emerge even in these highly unsettling times. These gloom and doom emails are a viral megaphone that threaten to to drown out our never-say-die American spirit.
Interestingly, the mood on the newer Social Media is much perkier. Tweeters tend to get het-up and pesky but try to share positives; bloggers get mad but share link love; Facebookers are tribal, joining groups, events, causes and status-donations. MySpacers are busy pitching their music while Ning’ers are simply passionate about their own thing. New Social Media is very different than the traditional old media world of email. Socialyzers are in-the-know junkies, wanting to be au courante 24/7. We feel our power (check my post on MotrinGate) and wield it deftly and swiftly. We’re passionately participating in this participatory media — not merely passing iffy information along as in the days of legendary email from Bill Gates, NPR, Disney, etc. If nothing else, Socialyzers want to believe we are in control; that crowdsourcing matters. After all, didn’t we just elect a new President? Traditional emailers are simply passing along the gloom-and-doom with scant hope of effecting change.
Hope and heart live on Social Media sites. Even in 140 characters life is bubbling up.
Here’s the email:
Wow, interesting times. I love gift cards but…maybe not this year.
Personally, it’s a good year to celebrate our family and friends.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!
XXOO ~ Stores that informed the Security Exchange of closing plans between October 2008 and January 2009. PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
Circuit City stores… most recent (? how many)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide are to be shuttered
Lane Bryant,, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 store
nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down all stores
J. Jill closing all stores
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January.
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Guru’s Correction: I am thrilled to correct this — as Home Depot is one of my hang-outs. I’ve heard from them and this is very old news dating back to May.
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pacific Sunware closing stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/ Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard’s to close some stores.
Guru’s Note: I have not verified this information. It’s too depressing. I’d rather hang out at the Apple Store with the Nano Chromatix and drool over the juicy colors.
Here’s the update on store closings from Snopes.com.
Are You A Social Media Douchebag?
Scroll back to 1995. This is when Our World began to split into Those-Who-Get-It and Those-Who-Don’t. In those pre-hysteric days, the Get-it part referred to the Internet. You were either leaping on board the speeding cyber bullet train or you were plodding along cluelessly behind.
Today’s vibe is similar. You’re either tweeting, blogging, posting, pinging, Xinging, twirling and TinyURL-ing. Or you’re not. But this time around, we have Social Media bluster blaring at us 24/7 to let us know we’re missing the train. Which means today’s laggards –the Social Media Have-Nots – are rapidly growing agitated. On a daily basis, I am hearing from smart, successful, normally-sane people who shriek into my Luddite-landline: “OMG, I’M NOT ON FACEBOOK YET!”
Much of this frenzy is the result of the Social Media Douchebags, as memorialized in the video above and gleefully discovered by the Guru on Dave Fleet’s terrific blog. This youtube favorite was originally about New Media Douchebags –but many Social Media Douchebags seem to be cut from the same self-promoting slacker cloth.
Guru’s Note: I am a Facebook fan. I just don’t like the One-Size-Fits-All variety of Social Media or the Throw The Pasta Against the Wall type. If you’re going to use participatory media for business, make sure its fits 1)your brand personality; 2)your target audience; 3)your comfort level. I see so many small businesses set up a Facebook fan page, which essentially becomes a ghost site, when they would be better served by Linkedin, etsy or their own customized Ning social network. It’s probably more important to be simpatico with the social media you choose — because it does take refreshing and maintenance — than it is to be everywhere … and nowhere.
Follow me on Twitter. (Ha! If you can’t beat ‘em …)
Surprise! Which Hot New Game Zoomed Up the Facebook Chart This Month?
If you’re in the Travel Industry and considering launching a Social Media app, read on. The Travel Channel’s Kidnap blazed onto Facebook’s gaming charts with over 2 million monthly active users only a few months after launch. New users are growing at an astonishingly viral 50,000 a day, many in that industry sweet spot: the travel-hungry late twenties. Travel Channel and Rapp Collins worked with social marketing app wizards Context Optional to build a social game where users kidnap their friends to far off places. In order to escape, the hostage must answer a question –and (natch) the answer can only be found on the Travel Channel. This clever segue leads to an impressive conversion rate: 50,000-80,000 players get turfed over to TC’s rich content. Jeff Feldman, Director of Business Development at Context Optional, tells me that while “there was some marketing spend initially, primarily on Facebook, the growth is almost entirely viral.”
San Francisco based Context has been on a roll lately, launching applications for major brands including: Kraft One Minute Mogul; Absolut Top Bartender; Miller Today I’m Toasting; and Microsoft Got Pies (for IE8).
For more Facebook gaming news, check out InsideSocialGames. A teaser: Friends For Sale takes a big drop while Facebook platform leader Lil Green Patch extended its lead by nearly half a million monthly active users to 6.5 million total.
The Social Networking Site Facebook Should Have Created.
It feels like a no-brainer.
All those millions of college students storming Facebook everyday. Doesn’t it make perfect sense for the edu pioneer to design a “new platform for college students to share reviews, photos, videos, documents, and more with students on their campus and across the country? Wouldn’t they be the obvious choice to design a site the best place for high school students to find out what life is really like at America’s colleges, and to make friends to help them find the school that’s right for them?”
Guess again. It’s not Facebook, it’s a new site called UNIGO. The brainchild of Jordan Goldman and interactive agency, Deepend New York, the site aims to give current and prospective students a social-media-centric way to learn about colleges on the Web. Although still in beta, more than 200 colleges are already profiled — I found my alma maters, University of Wisconsin and University of Oregon easily. Unigo has plans to include every college in America.
Unigo is packed with the social networking features this generation craves, from candid videos, ratings and reviews (already there are 30,000+) to friend requests/messaging. There’s even a network of Unigo reps on campus (UW’s seems to be a guy named Phil), to potentially create an offline presence.
Unigo launches just in time for all those high school valedictorians to get help with their Early Decision decisions. Smart.
Guru’s Note: Although I can see why Facebook didn’t pursue this natural brand extension, it had to be enormously tempting. Strategically, the social networking leader needed to move beyond singlemindedly serving only its traditional psychographic, as it did in 2006 when it opened the site to users beyond the edu address. But imagine if MZ and Company simply tapped into the huge percentage of Facebooking college students (some 85% in the US) and asked them for Ratings, Reviews and ‘the truth’ about their colleges. I’m glad they didn’t. It’s a healthier economy when smaller players get a piece of the pie, too.
This Year’s Hottest Halloween Costume: Joe The Plumber
It’s a classic ‘Wag the Tail phenomenon. Joe the Plumber, the Toledo, Ohio plumber who asked Barack Obama a question, already has nearly 1550 fans on his Facebook page.
Adding to Joe Wurzelbacher’s iconic status, many plan to copy his Plumber-Chic look for Halloween, possibly beating out Sarah Palin for most popular costume. So avoid the run on gray T’s and Mach 3’s. Rush to your local Home Depot asap.
Guru’s Note: Here’s the entire context of the exchange, courtesy of MSNBC.
Social Media for Small Business: Dell’s New Facebook Community.
A couple of years ago when I was covering CES for MediaPost, my prized press pass landed me in the front row for Michael Dell’s keynote speech. As serendipity would have it, Mr. Dell wound up sitting next to me as he waited to take center stage. I couldn’t help but notice how nervous he was. You couldn’t blame him; the company was doing its damnest to recover from Dell Hell.
And recover they did. In his talk, Michael Dell managed to convince this skeptic and former Dell user that his company had turned customer-centric. From Idea Storm to carbon offsetting programs, Dell was power-listening to its users. And today, there’s more proof that this company is really getting it. Here’s the announcement from the WOM website:
Dell has joined with Facebook to launch a community and guide series called ‘Social Media for Small Business’ intended to provide SMB customers with insight on how they can leverage social media to expand their business. The community has been created as a Facebook Page and includes:
- Guides on how to use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, “crowdsourcing” and other social media channels to cost-effectively reach and serve the “Connected Era;”
- “Screencast” introductions to social-media tools like Technorati, Netvibes and WordPress;
- A discussion board to spark conversation and idea sharing;
- A best-practice forum that features a different SMB weekly;
- SMB deals and news from Dell Small and Medium Business.
When I heard about Dell’s latest savvy customer-centric move, I was so impressed, I zipped over to order myself a new Dell desktop and discovered yet another shrewd user-friendly move: Dell offers a downgrade’ to XP on its Vista computers, if the buyer chooses.
Guru’s Note: Kudos to financial innovators like Visa and FiServ for reaching out to customers via social media. It’s way past time for marketers to adopt the ’share, not sell’ mantra that most of the Web 2.0 world has long accepted. The Visa Business Network has partnered with Facebook, offering a content rich Facebook page for small business plus $100 ad credit to get started. And who couldn’t love them for their Signature VISA VIP Tent (and matching VIP toilets) at the recent Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park?
Fiserv’s MyMoney program, which initially is being sold only to credit unions, lets members of participating institutions view account balances and transaction histories and transfer funds online without leaving their Facebook page. This application is so highly regarded that it won The Banker magazine’s 2008 Retail Award for Online Innovation. Ain’t it grand when our major corporations are doing something for us, the small businesses of the world, rather than whooping it up at the St. Regis Spa, courtesy of our bail-out bucks?
Trend Spotting For Springwise at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival.
Frequent Guru of New readers know I love tuning in to cool-hunting site Springwise for my fix of droolworthy new business ideas.
Springwise is powered by the Springspotter Network, a team of global marketing-savvy spotters who recognize a juicy new trend when they come across one.
Are you surprised to hear I happen to be one of those Springspotters?
Today I was jazzed to discover one of the ‘hot spots’ I contributed is featured in this week’s edition:
It’s one thing to offer luxury portable toilets for hire at private events, the way Igloo does. For a company like Visa to sponsor similar upscale conveniences as a privilege for its customer members, however, is quite another matter.
Yet that’s just what Visa did this summer at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music and arts festival, where it set up a VIP Signature Lounge reserved exclusively for the use of its cardholders. Those in possession of a Visa Signature card could gain access to private luxury restrooms a far cry above the porta-potties provided for the masses, along with a private bar and a free blanket gift for visiting the lounge. For entry, cardholders had simply to present their Visa Signature card, their ID and any valid festival ticket.
In addition to sympvertising—infusing one’s advertising with a dash of sympathy for consumers’ current plight—Visa’s effort provides a nice illustration of what our sister site trendwatching.com would call a brand butler offering, giving consumers some free but relevant assistance (branded, of course) to make their lives easier. Whether it’s a luxury loo or laundry service at a festival, consumers today are more likely to accept help from your brand than they are to listen to your ads. So put your money where your customers are, in their real-world lives, and give them a hand! They might just repay your kindness sometime. 
Website: www.visa.com/signature
Contact: https://corporate.visa.com/ut/contactus.jsp
Spotted by: Sarah Browne
Guru’s Note: Visa also happens to be smartly creating a presence on Facebook with its Visa Business Network. The network has 1753 fans, largely thanks to a terrific $100 ad credit, which gives businesses an opportunity to experiment with the increasingly effective Facebook’s mini ads.
Marketers To Ad Agencies: “You Still Don’t Get it.”
I’m an ad agency veteran. My fellow Mad Men fanatics call me Peggy. Once upon a time, Madison Avenue was the place to be; the pulse of all possibility.
Then came the digital age. Luckily, I discovered the ‘Internets’ early on. I made a speedy exit from advertising, where the Petes and the Ducks were asking their ‘girls’ to print out their emails and insisting that Mrs. P&G could never figure out AOL. As my Supra modem squawked, my world was instantly slashed into the ones that ‘get it’ and the ones that don’t.
Ad agencies still don’t get it.
Sapient recently sponsored a national online survey to gain insights into what marketers want from their advertising and marketing agencies in the next 12 months. The survey polled a pivotal group –more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketing professionals.
Sapient has put the key takeways from the survey into a Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future.
It’s all about technology, baby.
Virtually every item on the Top 10 Wish List centered on the digital space, from Web 2.0 and social media savvy to interactive advertising to virtual communities to even the availability of a Chief Digital Officer.
The List of Digital Shame:
More than a third of marketers surveyed say they’re not confident in their current agency’s grasp of online digital marketing and interactive advertising.
- 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.
- 45% of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns.
- 90% of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.
- 94% of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.
- 92% of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the (social media) technologies that they are recommending.
- 49% of marketers surveyed said that agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.
- 63% of marketers surveyed said that an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important’ when it comes to agency selection.
- 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.
Guru’s Take: Ad and marketing agencies have got to quit insisting that being digital is about age. Yes, the whippersnappers have grown up with it. My daughter has been online since she was 2, clutching blankie as she easily navigated ancient Macs and PCs. (Cross-platform since Pull-Ups, that’s my girl!) But that doesn’t mean abdicating social media marketing, new technology or anything interactive to the kiddies. When the first dotcom era bubbled up, those of us who could no longer squeeze into our high school cheerleader uniforms surfed our way through gallons of Visine and even more Starbucks to stay relevant. And guess what — we are. We bring solid marketing skills, new product expertise, and consumer-centric insight to a digital world that sorely needs these capabilities. I’d stack up my digital chops next to a Zuckerberg any day. Even a divine digital diva like this one.
I suspect that some of this digital malaise on the part of agencies is senior management that ::::sigh :::: still doesn’t get it. Maybe they’re still waiting to land the Pan Am account.
The Inevitable Anti Sarah Palin Facebook Page.
In the wake of this morning’s news, here’s a new Facebook page with 1,666 fans and growing. Don’t you love the way social networking has blossomed into such a powerful vox populi tool?
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