Our Thoughts

Idea Snapshot: M&M Internet Invasion

November 21, 2011 by Marian Schembari

Everyone needs a little inspiration, especially in the digital space. So we’ll be bringing you two new idea snapshots per month with a note on the campaign and an outline on how it works. Hopefully this will spark a little creativity on your end. And if you want to send us an idea you’ve stumbled across, feel free to leave a comment!

The Idea

M&Ms have taken over the internet. BBDO Denmark, a Copenhagen-based advertising agency, developed this straightforward game for M&Ms – a bookmarklet that allows you to “shoot up” any site with candy. Blast away copy, images and logos. It’s pretty fun.

The “game” is easy to use and builds on the hugely popular Kick Ass bookmarklet by Erik Andersson. For those of you unfamiliar with bookmarklets, simply visit the M&Ms Space Heroes website and drag the spaceship image to your bookmark toolbar. Then go to a site – any site – and click the link you just added. An M&M spaceship will pop up and using the arrows and space bar controls you can start shooting. Very simple, but if you’re still confused, watch the video below.

Why It Works

This fun little game has the potential to provide invaluable data to the Mars company like the most popular website visited, how much time spent playing the game and the number of people who used the bookmarklet (that is, if they were measuring these numbers). This data is all about M&Ms customers so, again, invaluable data. But almost just as importantly, interactive marketing campaigns allow users to be more involved with your company’s online presence. While the game itself leaves a lot to be desired (it’s not incredibly responsive and really only captures your attention for about a minute), the concept of bringing branding outside of your own little bubble on the internet and literally being everywhere is intriguing.

Imagine not just being able to brand your site, but the entire web.

Digital Marketer Interviews: Guy Gonzalez of Media Source

November 14, 2011 by Marian Schembari

Welcome to Digital Interviews – where we talk to people we admire about what’s hot in the world of digital marketing.

Today we have quite the treat for you. Guy Gonzalez, Director of Content and Digital Product Development at Media Source virtually sat down with us to talk all things digital. And by “talk” we actually mean “mouth-off.” And we listen. As the man behind development, content strategy and digital products for Library Journal, School Library Journal, and The Horn Book, he knows he’s stuff. He was also the brains behind Digital Book World, the hugely successful conference and online community for those in the rapidly changing publishing world.

He also runs the site, Loudpoet.com, what he calls the “Command Central” for everything and anything that catches his fancy. Tune in for Old and New Media with a publishing and marketing slant with the occasional dash of poetry and pop culture thrown in.

Gonzalez gave us the down low on social media hype, why he hates gamification and told us to stop calling it digital marketing…

What digital changes this year have you really loved?

As a pragmatic skeptic from Day One, I’ve been heartened to see the hype around social media giving way to more practical discussions about where it fits into the overall mix, and the acknowledgement that it’s neither a magic bullet nor one-size-fits-all.

I love that Google seems like it finally understands social – as a complement to search rather than a competitor, and I’m anxious to see how Google+ evolves over the next 6-12 months. “Sparks” has potential to take the hashtag concept to the next level and make them a more reliable signal than they currently are on Twitter.

What new tools do you think won’t catch on?

I’m still not sold on the “gamification” trend as most implementations misunderstand the underlying psychological appeal of achievements, and it’s held location-based services back as most of them haven’t lived up to the hype. Virtual badges for checking into real-world locations (or products, or articles) don’t have any practical value or lasting appeal in and of themselves. Without a tangible benefit to the user, engagement lags and eventually businesses will lose interest in the platform.

I find Foursquare mostly pointless (although their new list feature would be intriguing if I was still paying attention), but Yelp’s Android app was invaluable on my two visits to New Orleans this past summer. Checking into places is its least interesting feature, something Google’s acquisition of Zagat arguably demonstrates: location’s killer app is useful, relevant content, not stupid leaderboards and badges.

What’s the biggest challenge for people (both consumers and agencies) to embrace digital marketing?

I don’t think consumers have any challenges here, it’s the marketers who are challenged by the semantics.

First step, stop calling it digital marketing; it’s not a different theory of marketing, just a different channel with different tools. Second step, the fundamentals still apply: know thy audience; know thy mutual goals; have a great product and a clear message to communicate. Third step: um… profit?

Seriously, though, it goes back to there being no magic bullet. Digital channels offer far more options to marketers than so-called traditional channels, the primary one being the opportunity to engage people (actual people; not consumers or “the audience”) directly and not have to guess what their responses are. The flip side of that is what American Express’ Lou Paskalis referred to as a crisitunity: “Real-time data; it’s what we asked for.” How we use that data, what we learn from it and what we choose to ignore, will decide if we sink or swim.

Who in the digital space do you admire? What have they done to warrant said admiration? How can we emulate it?

I’ve been a fan of John Battelle and Federated Media’s approach to conversational marketing for a couple of years now; in theory, at least, if not always in practice. I love their focus on expertly curated content — what we used to call magazines in the old days! — and engagement over interruption advertising. American Express’ OPEN Forum is arguably one of the best examples of their approach.

I also remain a huge fan of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a 12-year-old must-read that’s more relevant today than 99.9% of the nonsense published about the Internet and social media since! If you’re in marketing and haven’t read it yet, you’re doing it wrong.

You can mouth-off right back by connection with Guy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and, of course, his blog.