November 2008 Archives
Sometimes I find that many of us in social media are unnecessarily harsh on ourselves and overly critical of each other too. I felt this recently while discussing a JC Penny campaign with a few others in the blogosphere. The digital campaign called "Beware the Doghouse" allows women to put their husbands or boyfriends in the doghouse for misbehaving or being just plain stupid. The husbands can get themselves out of the doghouse by buying the partners diamonds!
Now its meant to be light, whimsical and fun. And the campaign (especially the introductory video clips) are just that. The campaign uses Facebook Connect to help you choose someone to put into the doghouse. Basically you are able to choose someone from your friends list in Facebook to add to the doghouse. In my opinion a straightforward and perfectly appropriate use of Facebook Connect. However, a couple of fellow bloggers felt that using Facebook Connect in the a digital marketing campaign is a "poor implementation" of it. And I couldn't disagree more.
Firstly Facebook Connect is new and there are a lot of potentially different uses for it. Just because Facebook Connect isn't being used on JCPenny.com for the retail experience but in a campaign doesn't make it a bad implementation. Furthermore, to use Facebook Connect to find friends (known peers) is exactly what's needed to make this campaign a success. It is a fun way to use a person's social graph. Why then is it a poor implementation?
Many of us in the social media space are techno-centric in our outlook and we're obviously bullish on social media. But we're definitely doing the cause a disservice by trying to judge what is and what isn't a good use of a social media technology. Let the users decide that. After all, social media is about democratization too. For more on interesting implementations of Facebook Connect read this post.
Disclaimer - Razorfish bought the media to support the campaign but was not responsible for the creative idea or the execution.
Intel is launching its new microprocessor, the Core i7, which is the most significant update to the Intel microprocessor since the Pentium Pro in 1995. But unlike any other processor Intel has produced, the Core i7 target audience consists of creative professionals, like film producers, gaming developers, and animators – a largely untapped audience for Intel. So they asked Razorfish to help them with the launch. 
Adweek just published a piece by me on how we should start leveraging insights from academia once more to really tap into the power of social influence. A lot of what we talk about and practice has deep foundations in academic research and the goal of this piece was to draw attention to some of that research. Needless to say, each time I write an article like this it turns out to be a humbling experience as I learn how much I don't know!Marketing has always had an uneasy relationship with academia. However, with the rise of social media and its transformative impact on digital marketing, there's a new imperative to look towards academia -- to understand how people form networks, influence each other and organize into online communities.
This article highlights some of the thinking we should look towards while navigating the uncharted territories of marketing on the social Web. It is impossible to be comprehensive, so treat this as a sampling encompassing some key thoughts in academia and how they should impact marketing.
