A great example of this is West Elm who help inspire potential customers on the social scrapbooking site Pinterest. If you are not familiar, Pinterest is a relatively new start-up that allows its primarily female users to build pinboards based on their interests and projects. This group consists of approximately 1.5 million Facebook connected users in addition to a unknown number of individuals signing in via Twitter and unique ID.*

Instead of forcing a message in as an outsider, West Elm created a free account and began to establish themselves as a respected member of the community. Each of their boards feature current home interior trends from their collection as well as pins from design blogs and other users. It doesn’t matter if the featured pieces are not from their store as long as they help to express their theme. This approach is proving to be successful; they have more likes, repins and overall traction than any other user we have seen.

There are 3 things brands can learn from this case study.

1. Receptive Audience

The Pinterest community has tools built specifically for creative exploration. West Elm provides members with valuable help while they are in process of searching for design inspiration. While Facebook or Twitter may have larger audiences, only a small percentage of that audience is going to care that colour blocking is big this year.

2. Ownership

West Elm was the first interior design retailer to enter the Pinterest community. They easily could have stuck to posting albums to Facebook that demonstrate their design taste or tweeting about their products. Instead of competing with hundreds of other voices they found a quiet place to have an engaging conversation with their customers.

3. Low Risk

The cost for West Elm to join Pinterest was $0 and their participation didn’t require monumental organizational change. The reputation they are creating for themselves in the design community is going to create more value than their effort.

* Based on number of Facebook likes. Despite extensive digging we were unable to find information on total number of users.

Start a conversation

In the past writers wrote traditional ads for a collective broadcast, as people viewed ads together gathered around the TV or radio. Now we’re an audience of one; we surf the web in solitude, so the experience must be more of a one on one conversation. That’s why it’s important to talk in the voice of the brand and sound like a real person. Whether the personality of the brand is funny, absurd, or inspiring – it should be authentic. A good tip is to “write the way you talk.” Use a voice that’s familiar, relatable and casual as opposed to being formal and preaching to the user. If the tone is right, the user should feel as if they’re having a chat with a trusted friend. Good writing is one of the most important ways to establish a brand’s voice and identity. The Mini is well known for it’s innovative advertising and has a defined fun and cheeky voice. The Mini blog extends the brand’s personality and starts a conversation promoting urban culture, art, fashion and Mini competitions and events.

Allow users to respond

With the Internet, advertisers can easily involve the user in a conversation or solicit a response with a click of the mouse. They can take advantage by calling out offers and creating response mechanisms for immediate gratification. Social media allows users to speak their mind and even participate in campaigns to help build brand identity.

Listen and adapt

Once a conversation has been established it’s important to consider customer feedback. Whether it’s monitoring social media or analyzing “click throughs,” it’s helpful to listen to the user, especially within customer service channels. People are usually satisfied if they know their opinions are being taken into account. Over time, a company can implement change, evolve and represent the common interest and voice of their consumers. Starbucks uses crowdsourcing to boost public image on the site My Starbucks Idea. Customers and employees can converse and post ideas about products, services and community involvement. This is an example of how great brands establish a conversation and allow for effective communication. An authentic voice that resonates with the public is more likely to build loyalty and trust among consumers.

TV: passive to active?

Have our attention spans become so short that we cannot simply watch a TV show without posting our thoughts or looking up info on our phones? It’s clear that advertisers and producers recognize this, as they’ve begun to weave digital campaigns and social media into TV programming. It’s possible that as TV and the digital world become more integrated, content will seamlessly be shared across platforms, and watching TV could become a more active participatory experience. A few brands such as Honda and AXA auto insurance have recently created commercials and implemented the use of mobile apps. The spots are well executed technically as content is transferred via QR code and sound-syncing technology. Despite the innovative approach, the importance of these types of ads is to take the user from viewing to product purchase.

In terms of TV programming, the UFC has begun streaming pay-per-view while simultaneously allowing users to interact on multiple platforms by tweeting, chatting and judging the fights. The service is quality programming and might be a look into what the future holds for TV and the Internet. This appears to work better than regular programming trying to incorporate social media, such as a live twitter stream during events and award shows. It seems that social networks are becoming a legitimate resource. The Stream, a news talk show is actually using social media as a basis; producers will script the broadcast using tweets, Facebook posts, and YouTube videos. Furthermore, major events have called for the use of specialized apps that offer complementary information. For instance, the Oscar Backstage Pass app this season gave an exclusive behind the scenes look into the awards show. The problem is that without proper integration of these apps and social media, viewing all the different screens becomes a challenge. It’s hard to tell if this activity will soon become normalized, or if people will always prefer to relax and enjoy TV.

Rewards can make an impression. Inspiration can ignite a movement.

A great way to make a lasting impression is to deliver immediate gratification or offer some type of tangible reward. For example, GranetaPets, a premium dog food in Germany, had key insight to stop dogs and owners when walking by their billboard. The company concealed actual dog food within the billboard; dogs were therefore attracted to it, as they have a heightened sense of smell. Owners that took notice were encouraged to check-in via Foursquare and once they did, a free bowl of dog food was dispensed.

Many great ideas involve the user and depend on them to participate in the making of a campaign. Coca Cola’s latest crowdsourcing campaign got rock band Maroon 5 on board to create an original song in 24 hours with fans contributing to the song via Twitter. Fans were able to tweet lyrics and ideas as inspiration for the band. Once the track gets 100k downloads, Coke will make a donation on their fan’s behalf to the RAIN Foundation (Replenish Africa Initiative). This is not just a campaign, it’s a part of a bigger movement to help make the world a better place, with the ultimate goal of providing at least 2 million Africans with clean water by 2015. Many companies have made similar moves such as Pepsi with their Refresh the World project, and Maxwell House’s Brew some good initiative. A successful campaign can usually create a movement when it’s inspiring, for the common good, and has a unique idea that is cohesive with the brand.

Useful campaigns

Campaigns and apps that are inherently useful make a more impactful UX. Many campaigns have used augmented reality in their approach, but the World Lens app, is one of the most useful implementations that we’ve seen. The app for the iPhone and iPod Touch offers real time translation of text. You simply point your device’s video camera at a sign and the program translates and superimposes the translated text onto the video.

Another useful print ad for Carlsberg, gives a step-by-step process for turning the ad into an actual bottle opener. Although, you might have missed its intention when flipping through a magazine.

Retail marketing

Shopping retail is becoming an increasingly more immersive and interactive experience. Puma has recently implemented iPads for in-store use, and Adidas is using large LCD touch screens to help explore inventory and allow the user to build their own shoes and even checkout.

Kraft has been experimenting with facial recognition technology to hone in on targeted users. They put a kiosk in a grocery store that asked, “what’s for dinner?” The kiosk zooms in on the users face and instantly determines gender and age group to suggest products that might be appealing. It even goes one step further dispensing product samples like a vending machine. This type of marketing is great for point of purchase sales and is highly personalized. On the other hand, it’s possible the kiosk could identify the wrong gender or age altogether; hopefully, it won’t offend and mistake your Justin Bieber hairstyle for a little girl and suggest Teddy Grahams.

Social media

Many social media campaigns have encouraged themes of kindness and generosity, and have elements of planned spontaneity and tangible rewards.

A Dutch airline, KLM Airlines has used Foursquare as a platform and employed a ‘Surprise Team’ to give passengers personal, unexpected gifts at the airport. As soon as someone checked-in at a KLM Foursquare location, the Surprise Team went online to find out personal information about the person, and delivered a unique gift before they traveled. For instance, one traveler tweeted he would miss a PSV soccer game while he was in New York. The Surprise Team gave him a Lonely Planet guidebook of NYC with all the sports bars highlighted in blue.

Similarly, Interflora, a flower delivery service launched a campaign to brighten up the lives of Twitter users. They monitored Twitter looking for users that they believed need cheering up. Once found, the users were sent a bouquet of flowers. Privacy had to be a big concern during the course of these campaigns, since they are largely focused on social monitoring. Hopefully all of the recipients were pleasantly surprised and didn’t become paranoid that Big Brother is always watching.

Converging devices

The most significant trend that we see evolving in the future is the convergence of mobile devices, computers and TV screens. The key is to understand how devices will interact, and how to seamlessly integrate the entire experience from one screen to another.

Through the use of a banner ad, Gol Airlines has turned the mobile phone into a remote control. Users input their mobile number into the banner, and they immediately get a call connecting them to the desktop. The banner then becomes a flying game controlled by the mobile device. The ad comes together in the end, reminding customers that they can conveniently check-in via mobile phone when they fly.

The Shazam app is evolving, as the logo will be ‘embedded’ into programs ready for users to tag TV shows. This entails using a mobile device to listen and recognize the TV episode in question. Shazam will then provide complementary info; links to exclusive video and previews of upcoming episodes, access to playlists from the series and downloads. This will completely integrate the web browsing and TV watching experience.

Check out other notable ideas:

• E-paper
• Twitter, Secret Santa
• Heineken, The Entrance
• Yahoo, Multiplayer Gaming

What about a way to port your profile and social capital from one social network platform to another? How about the ability to selectively share something into multiple social networks in a contextually relevant way? I would like to suggest the extent to which we want/need these kinds of improvements speaks to the fundamental crudeness of our current social media tools and platforms.

Don’t get me wrong—I agree along with everyone else that the last few years have been truly seminal in terms of how we are able to socialize in the digital channel. Facebook and Twitter APIs have made a universal social graph possible, mobile technology has made access and connectivity to this graph ubiquitous and intensely personal, etc. What I’m saying is that the next few years have the potential to be every bit as revolutionary.

I believe that some of the fundamental challenges that underly current social network platforms will become more and more salient and lead to lots of (potentially disruptive) innovation in 2011 and 2012. What kinds of fundamental challenges? The kind that make it hard for tools like Facebook and Twitter to map onto how we’re actually wired to socialize.

The discussion is already well underway. For example, it has been noted that social expression has traditionally been private by default, public through effort. The social affordances of platforms like Facebook practically reverse that equation. It may be that this is a distortion of how we truly want to—and will be able to in the future—use social media to express ourselves and connect with others. A little while ago, Google’s Paul Adams pointed out that much of how Facebook works is based on the untrue assumption that all connections are homogeneous “friends.” An outworking of this fact is a lot of noise in our news feeds. Or take Twitter. It is based on the assumption that we actually want to hear regularly from people we follow. But this may not be true all the time: for example, there may be a range of social pressures that factor into our decision to follow someone. Thus, the need for something like a mute button. On a much more technical level, issues relating to universal access and potability are being discussed in depth.

I definitely don’t want to underestimate how far we’ve come, or technology’s ability to transform how we communicate and socialize; but I’m excited to see how users will adapt, and innovators will seize on opportunities to recreate our current social media landscape in the next few years.

Last week Forrester released a report advising most marketers wait to use location-based social networks (LBSN) as only 4% of the US population is currently using platforms such as Foursquare (the current market leader), and that the networks skew heavily male. They advise that brands that target young males experiment with the services and other brands adopt a “wait and see” approach.

I couldn’t disagree more. Here are my 5 reasons why it’s smart to start experimenting now.

1. First Movers.

There’s something to be said for getting a head start on your competition in the digital space. Brands like Starbucks, Dell, Pepsi, and Nike have all taken advantage of the emerging channels and reaped the rewards of building a strong early foundation with consumers.

While you should not rush into a new tool without understanding your strategic goals and how it integrates with your business objectives, experimenting with emerging technologies that are opt-in and potentially have a direct customer impact is smart.

When Facebook opened their gates to the general population in 2006 they had a small user base of university students. Four years later they are a behemoth. Twitter adoption rates have been increasing exponentially year over year since their launch in 2007 and the tool is now considered a “must use” for social business. Considering Foursquare launched about a year ago, can we expect to see the same type of growth curve as the early adopters begin to influence the early majority? (see “Crossing the Chasm” adoption curve)

2. Google. Facebook. Oh My.

Location-based services are not limited to the current apps we have been hearing about. Facebook has expressed they will add a location-based offering soon, Twitter has added “Tweet with your location” to their service, and the biggest news is that Google is adding a Places API to their eco-system, as well as adding LB data extensions to their mobile advertising product.

LBSN will become mainstream sooner rather than later, and it will be the big players, not the niche networks that will drive the adoption. Testing and learning now, before it becomes ubiquitous should be something on every marketers radar.

3. Data and utility.

There is an enormous amount of insightful and actionable data that can be gleaned about your customers and prospects from mobile & LBSNs. Eventually this data could be used to inform inventory control, staffing levels, consumer tastes and trends, etc. The data can also be used in loyalty programs, to identify influencers, test new products, and as real-time service focus groups.

Companies already testing the waters include:

Nike with True City; Starbucks with their Foursquare offers; The Pepsi mobile branded app; and the City of Chicago with their Tourism campaign.

4. Sales, Coupons, Offers, and more.

Part of the Forrester analysis identified that mobile couponing is widely successful with the users currently using the services, which is interesting as the base is primarily young males, not the average coupon-consuming demographic. Gone are the days of clipping coupons in the Sunday paper, now you can serve relevant offers and drive foot traffic and purchase directly to a mobile device. These offers are opt-in, and contextually relevant, not SMS spam. Testing offers, tips, and messaging via mobile should be on every retailers plan for the next year.

Of course one size doesn’t fit all and ensuring that your product or service fits within the make-up of the demographic, depending on service (existing or branded), is a must.

5. Mobile usage.

Of course mobile, and specifically smartphone, usage is soaring year over year. Ignoring mobile at this point is like ignoring the Internet in 2002 because broadband wasn’t prevalent yet.

Bottom line for marketers:

Experiment. See what fits, what your customers are looking for, and where you can add value. Don’t wait until it becomes mainstream, because that will be sooner than you think and you’ll be playing catch-up.

photo credit: john weiss via Flickr

It all started with the insight and a deep understanding of the market and the consumer.

The objective, as Leigh rightly points out, was to re-position and re-invigorate the brand.  To do this the team needed to understand the competitive landscape, the perspective consumers had of the brand, and the territory they had to play in. The market was saturated with female unfriendly AXE advertising, and as women are the primary consumers for male scent gifts, turning that into an advantage would have been mandatory for Old Spice.

With that as the starting point the Old Spice team (with a receptive client) decided to do the obvious: appeal to women without alienating men.

Old Spice cast the perfect actor for the new positioning. A former NFL player, a nice guy, and someone who wasn’t so perfect that men would feel threatened. Genius casting. Based on, I imagine, a perfect casting brief.

The next step was to create a seriously funny commercial that turned all the cliche’s of advertising and film on their heads. “Look at your man, now back at me”. “It’s now diamonds”. “I’m on a horse”. They made a commercial that was frankly better than 90% of the TV shows it appeared alongside. I first heard of it because my partner was watching TV and told me I had to see it. So what did I do? I went to YouTube and there it was. Word of mouth at it’s finest, but it would have been dead in the water if the team hadn’t thought to seed it online first.

They let that roll and roll it did. Everyone who saw the commercial started sharing it, and a character was born.

Now what to do with the follow up? The character was a success both online and offline and while they could continue to let it ride as a TV spot, the proof was there that they could take advantage of how much the spot resonated with the folks online.

The plan was to create a new TV spot, let that simmer for a bit and then pounce. The social media marketers did their homework and decided what the right outlets were to start spreading the character. The fact they took on 4Chan and won speaks volumes about how integrated and on the ball they were. While everyone talks about how they took over Twitter in a day, they really started seeding the campaign before that. They laid the groundwork. And it paid off. Big time.

It came on my radar with @jakrose tweeting that he’d received a video reply early Tuesday morning. “Fry it up and eat it down JakRose. Fry it up and eat it down.” The network effect took over and for the next two days it was all I cared about that was happening online. The social team did a brilliant job monitoring responses and working with the creatives to write compelling copy. They didn’t just target celebrities and “influencers” but responded to comments, Diggs, tweets and blog posts that they felt fit with the character as a whole. They were obviously fully immersed in the language and cadence of the social web because their video responses contained references only a geek would love (or get). They respected all the unwritten rules of the culture and tailored their responses to match the brand, and the mediums they were using.

They embraced the mash-ups and promoted them. They let the community roll with it. They poked fun at themselves (Old Spice responding to @isiahmustafa) And they set a time limit. Any longer than 2 days and it would have become tired. Any shorter and it would have been disappointing. The mash-ups continue to roll in, with the most recent being Mel Gibson calling the Old Spice Guy.

It was brilliance that came from the initial insights and work they did a couple of years ago. And deep understanding of how the social web works.

The challenge will be what they do next and if it moves the needle at the top of the purchase funnel (awareness & consideration). But I have faith, and am looking forward to every moment of it!

[Update August 13, 2010] W+K just released their case-study of the campaign: Old Spice is now the #1 brand of body wash for men, with sales increasing 107% in the last month alone.

A common theme we keep hearing is: who and where are people who want to communicate with us, and whom we should be listening to and focusing our content development on?

As part of the process we’ve developed for formulating a solid and sustainable social strategy for brands, we typically start with developing a Digital/Social Persona to help guide the engagement and communications strategy. While Personas are common in advertising and UX circles, they are relatively unique within social media as most practitioners will just tell you to “start listening”. While this is absolutely key to understanding and getting involved, it doesn’t provide a roadmap for long-term planning and engagement.

A persona doesn’t replace interacting directly with your customers, however it does give brands an understanding of how their customers are using digital media in all its forms, how they are interacting and engaging with complementary brands, the types of content that resonate with them, and a sense of where the brand “fits” (or could fit) within their online life. It also clearly demonstrates where it falls down, or neglects an important aspect.

In our experience, having this information, backed by thorough data and research, immediately illustrates where traditional communications fall short and why they should invest in 1-to-1 interaction and content development to remain relevant. It also begins to start the process of thinking about what true integration and touchpoints mean on a larger level.

We have a system we use to develop these personas with both qualitative and quantitative research, and with each iteration or new project find new ways to get to know the “persona” of the composite individual we’re modeling. I have a firm belief that with the amount of data we are collectively collecting in the digital realm helping companies make sense of it all and truly understand who their customers and prospects are will become both easier and more difficult. :)

For my social media friends out there – what types of practices do you use to help your clients get to know their customer?

photo credit: Cesar R. via Flickr

• How Canadian media usage patterns have dramatically changed
• Why advertising within VideoGame, Mobile and Digital Out-Of-Home channels are poised to reach critical mass, and
• Where Social Media is being harnessed to drive sales.

Prior to the conference I got a chance to discuss these topics with Eyal Zilnik from One Stop Media. He delivered the presentation for the panel I was on, Do It Digital: How The Latest Advances In Digital Out-Of-Home Bring Internet, Mobile and Social Media To Life. Eyal did an excellent job of illustrating how DOOH has changed. And it was exciting to throw ideas around with someone else who gets as excited about Digital Out-Of-Home as I do. We came to several conclusions, namely:

1. Marketers still regard DOOH as an animated billboard or a placement to run video loops (often running adapted TV spots without audio)
2. Few people understand that DOOH boards are more like desktop computer screens than they are Out-Of-Home billboards – they are integrated into a network with a unique IP and facilitate the full range of dynamic targeting we now take for granted in traditional online advertising, and
3. Few Canadian marketers have experimented with DOOH despite the low cost of participation, and fewer still have embraced the opportunity to link DOOH with mobile and social media.

These points were reinforced by the comments and questions we heard during our session. Several attendees came up to me after the conference and said they had no idea that the things we discussed were even possible. Maybe it’s because I’m interested in this topic but that came as a surprise.

To me, DOOH is much more than just another media tactic. DOOH will play a key role in the future of marketing. With the rise in smartphone usage and the recent introduction of the iPad (and the announcement of Apples’ iAd platform) consumers are moving away from the desktop. One only need look at consumer adoption of Facebook and the platform changes announced at F8 to understand that for many, social media is the backbone of current communication habits. Could a retail marketer integrate their social presence with DOOH (or their in-store signage network) and enable consumers to engage over mobile? Most definitely. The technology and systems are already in place.

My hope is that marketers will seize the opportunity to innovate and begin to create communication that does more than shout messages, but instead engage with consumers in new and profound ways.

Dave Stubbs is a member of the Emerging Platforms Council, IAB Canada

I’ll be on a panel at SMX Toronto this Friday: Search and Social – Insight and Inspiration. The panel will be moderated by Alexa Clark and feature a cross-section of smart folks – Leona Hobbs from Social Media Group, Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People and Ilya Grigorik from Postrank.

I’ve always been passionate about the intersection of search and social and how the two can intersect to provide a rich, contextual experience for users. With the quality of people on the panel it’s sure to be a lively and informative discussion.

If you plan on attending, make sure to say hello!