Flurble

I came across a ground-breaking new social media tool the other day that I think every marketing director and VP needs to know about right now.

Flurble combines the stickiness of Facebook, the immediacy of Twitter, the social bookmarking capabilities of del.icio.us, the searchability of Google, YouTube's instantaneous viralocity, and Digg's peer-to-peer interest group features. If you're looking for something that attracts the IM-addicted, text-savvy, iPhone app-loving emerging market, it's all about Flurble.

In fact, if I may be so bold, I would say that if your website isn't Flurblized in the next three months, you're going to miss a very big boat. If you don't believe me, I'd put money down that your competitors are implementing it (and licking their chops at the prospect of stealing your customers) as we speak.

What is Flurble? Absolutely nothing. It doesn't exist. I made it up.

Why? Two reasons: One, I'm cruel that way. Two, while I am a serious believer in (and user of) social media tools, I continue to think that marketing directors should resist the temptation to trust anyone who touts "the next best thing" on that still-developing frontier. I've been in meetings where I thought I could throw out a ridiculous word like "flurble" and make people's eyes light up.

But that would be branding malpractice. I prefer satire. :)

What Do Punditry & Marketing Have in Common?

I've been watching the Democratic National Convention. While most criticisms about conventions are directed at their informercialness, my biggest criticism is of the coverage itself. Punditry has hit a new low. It now takes a dozen people to say absolutely nothing.

Most of the time I'm watching the so-called experts, I'm wondering why in the world they're not talking to real people. To hear a pundit say, "The strength of this speech is that it appeals to the blue-collar working-class swing-voter in Scranton"--and then NOT cut to an actual blue-collar working-class swing-voter from Scranton--seems absurd.

The Internet (specifically social media) has brought this expectation with it. Call it the death of the filter. CNN's entire "Best Political Team on Television" is a filter based on the old model of Expert->Consumer. Most people under 30 don't go for filters. They don't know who James Carville is, nor do they care what he thinks. Or if they do care what he thinks, their next question is, "What do my friends think about what James Carville thinks?"

As with so many things these days, I saw this as another analogy in marketing. So many times, people try to be the speculative pundit filter. In extreme cases, they actually don't care what their customers think. More often, they simply "think" they already know. But they don't actually ask. They'd rather speculate, so they can't be proven wrong.

I've been working on a product that addresses this, which is in a beta phase right now. Call it a way of eliminating Pat Buchanan and James Carville and getting right to Scranton.

Whose Ad Is This?

(I'm a little late in commenting on this campaign, but I think the point is timeless.)

I'm guessing that the ad above rings a bell. It's a TV campaign where disembodied hands create an image in the negative space of sand against a light board, then seamlessly transform that image into another one, then another.

It's visually stunning and hypnotic. I've researched it and discovered that the hands belong to Israeli artist Ilana Yahav, who is the only person in the world doing this kind of art.

I love this campaign, yet ultimately, I think it's utterly ineffective.

Whether I'm right or wrong depends on the answer to this question: If you've seen these ads, can you tell me (without cheating) which company they are for?

Commodity Logic

I first heard the phrase months ago from a friend and colleague in the same industry. A client of his wanted to busy up a magazine ad with the logic, "Hey, if we're paying for paper and ink, we might as well use it."

I shrugged it off as an isolated incident. Surely this is only the mindset of less-experienced marketing professionals at smaller organizations. Right?

Wrong. The same thing happened on another one of his projects--this one funded by a rather well-known, highly successful Twin Cities entrepreneur. The product: a catalog. The comment: "As long as we're paying for paper and ink, we might as well use it."

I won't get into the details of what was being discussed, but suffice it to say, if you've seen the brilliant Stop Sign Video, it was about adding more to the stop sign (and making it half blue, half pink).

The Commodity Mindset is so wrong on so many levels, the riffing analogies are almost too numerous to fathom:

"Excuse me, Senor Picasso, but as long as I'm paying for canvas and oils, could you add something more to that painting... something besides cubes?"

"Sorry, Herr Mozart, but as long as I'm paying for the 20 violinists, could you please add a movement?"

"Yes, Albert, it's very clever. But as long as I'm paying for your research, could you add another letter to e=mc2?"

Don't obsess on the individual commodities of your marketing. Think about the final product from the perspective of the audience. In a crowded world, "less is more" is usually the way to go.

Focus vs. Inclusion Part III

This was originally on YouTube and then removed. Now it's back on a different site, so I'm including the link:

What If There Were No Stop Signs?

Sure, it's a little... uh, slanted toward the agency perspective. But it's an excellent portrayal of life from the creative side.

Best line: "We're targeting men secondarily."

What Do the iPhone and Working with an Agency Have in Common?

I'm not a gadget head. I'm not a first adopter. I've never been a Mac Whacko. But now that's all changed, thanks to the iPhone. Especially thanks to the latest OS update.

I won't bore you with a laundry list of what makes the iPhone so addictive. What I think is interesting is this: When it comes to the creative marketing process, the iPhone provides the perfect analogy. Why? Because it's one part rigidity and one part flexibility. One part highbrow, one part lowbrow. One part singular expertise, one part massive collaboration.

The industrial design and user interface represent the first word in each of those pairings. Apple played the role of the exclusive artist and said, basically, screw convention, screw the way things have been done before, screw the entire concept of "buttons." And it created a design and user interface so human-friendly and appealing to the eye, that the mere sight of a Blackberry looks downright troglodytic.

The most recent decision to take a page from Facebook and let people create their own applications ("apps" in common parlance) for the new OS represents the second set of words. Apple controlled what it wanted to control, then it opened the floodgates to outside creativity within its constraints. The result: I've downloaded half a dozen "apps" for my iPhone, including the best device for locating movies and showtimes ever devised (Box Office).

(I've also downloaded two ridiculous apps just for fun: iBeer turns the phone in to a glass of beer where the liquid moves when you tilt the phone. And PhoneSaber turns the phone into a Star Wars light saber that makes sound effects according to the way you move the phone. Don't worry, total cost for both was only $2.99, and I consider it tax deductible.)

There is now a mad dash to create iPhone apps. And that's a good thing. Because it only strengthens the brand by keeping the public intimately engaged. People are using an Apple product to express themselves, which for me is the holy grail of branding.

When you're working with a creative agency, you should expect both sides of this proverbial coin. For any given project to succeed, you need one part "we're the experts, this is what you should do" and one part "you're the client, you know your business, we can be flexible." Too much of either one seldom works.

P.S. Just downloaded the app that turns your phone into bubble wrap that you can pop. Yippee!

What Do Franchise Relations and the Cookie Monster Have in Common?

I've long despised the proliferation of "nerbs" (verbs used as nouns, such as the act of "sunsetting a product line"), but I heard a doozy in a recent client meeting that I think I can get behind.

This is a client with an extensive national franchise network. Last year, they tried a marketing campaign that seemed pretty simple for store owners to understand. Yet, in the end, execution was lacking (didn't they realize that the window clings had to go in a certain order for the design to make sense?). My contact said plainly, "This year, we need to Sesame Street it even more."

Now that's a nerb I can embrace. The truth is, it's not even an insult. I've touted my own version of Sesame Streeting, called "Good Grips Marketing." I remember reading that Good Grips kitchen products, which were intended for arthritic seniors, quickly caught on with the younger set. Why? Because there was something so simple about them, as if they looked at you and said, "Grab me here, and I won't let go." Next, I noticed how car dashboards were getting simplified. No more galaxies of buttons with no clear way of connecting the dots. Suddenly, everything was minimal and big. (It's a feature of my Honda Accord that I still appreciate.)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you want someone to do something, make it easy. If you want them to understand something, make it fun. Is this a product of a twee culture that refuses to evolve from childhood? Well, maybe. But I think it's more a reflection of our ridiculously chaotic lives, and the fact that we'll throw our loyalties behind anyone who makes the extra effort to keep things simple.