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Yesterday, the “world’s first collaborative brand” was proclaimed on Twitter by @commonworks. Alex Bogusky (Common’s founder) left CP+B last year and has since then been working on several interesting projects, and now we know what the majority of them went into. COMMON is a new type of playground: part community, part business- and part collaborative brand. They’re out there to, amongst many things, solve social problems.
I’m not writing about this because I think it’s the most revolutionary idea ever (because we haven’t seen any results yet). But consider what Groupon’s CEO recently said, after apparently firing agency Crispin Porter:
“We learned that you can’t rely on anyone else to control and maintain your own brand.”
Is that really true? Maybe we just need something different. As an advertising student that is trying to get a grip of this unforgiving industry, I truly appreciate a fresh breath of air. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I think Bogusky and his friends are keeping it interesting, and I dig this new angle, “COMMON is all about connecting people with good ideas to like-minded creative professionals.” Do you have another take on it? Please share. You can read more about Fearless Revolution and the COMMON project here.
San Francisco is my kind of town, as Sinatra would have put it. A playground for adults, San Francisco has a diversity I’ve never seen before, a charm and mystery few other cities can even compare to – and even though it’s been said already – it has that big city complexity that only larger cities are capable of handling. Even though I’m on a student budget, I try to be smart about how I spend my money so that I can bulk up some extra cash for experiences rather than for things. In my case, I like eating so that’s where I usually invest my money every weekend. A proud foodie, I try new places because I want to learn something new and above all, I want something different. It helps when you’re surrounded with people who share those interests.
The other day when I had breakfast with my friend and mentor Cameron, he told me about this new and exciting business that had that very special San Francisco-ish feeling that I so truly enjoy. It’s called, Carried Away SF. The company was very recently launched by Vikki and Dianne, two ex-planners in San Francisco that loved traveling and uncovering new grounds, and even more so that fell in love with the city so much that they left their work to make a dream come true. I had the privilege of engaging with these super cool ladies the other day, and let me tell you; this is amazing. The idea is to take the getting-to-know-a-city concept and make it much more personal, intimate and even more importantly an experience you’ll always remember. The experiences you can choose from are called an ‘Outing’. Whether you want your own customized sightseeing, taste the best foods and delicacies from every hidden corner, see and learn about the jaw-dropping urban architectural wonders, shop untraditional cool on handpicked locations, drink bubbly champagne along secret alleys or perhaps get blown away by the views you didn’t know existed, all together with the best San Francisco guides you can imagine – then this is something for you. Everything is tailor-made in detail just to fit with your wishes and there will be no more than 4 people going at the same time (and if you’re a lone wolf, that works too). You don’t share it with people you don’t know – it’s for you and your company exclusively whether it’s for a couple of hours or an entire day. So, how do you go around all these fabulous places? Well, they have their own Batmobile of course, perhaps a slightly more discreet and convenient one. They will take you on a journey where you have to do nothing more than to absorb as much as you can with all of your senses. You get to know San Francisco for real, probably better than most people ever have experienced this city. Even though you’re doing routes others might have seen, every outing is unique depending on what the guides have in store for you.
Traveling is about exploring, seeking the adventure and learning about the culture and atmosphere that lies in front of you. I always enjoyed being on vacation with my family because we always did things and made trips even on the designated destination, no matter where in the world we visited – which gave especially us, the children, a point-of-view and impression rather than sand in our shoes and the hopelessness of swimming in the hotel pool with a t-shirt for a week due to sunburned skin. Group tours are unexciting and buses are boring – Carried Away SF is a proper way of how a city, in fact any city, should be discovered. I would call it an experience inside the experience. Carried Away SF just launched their website last week and reservations from visitors and locals are coming in daily. The gift cards are being ordered by enthusiastic followers and newly updated discoverers.
I have read everything about Carried Away SF, I’m a fan on Facebook and I have talked with the creators – now I can’t wait to take-off. My only concern is, which one should I choose? I want them all, simultaneously. Check out their website and see if they have something you might fancy, because if you visit the city in a near future – you really don’t want to miss out on such a journey. With that in mind I’ll say; awesomeness, take me away.
Apple is letting go of their famous “Get a Mac” campaign, which featured Justin Long and John Hodgman in a verbal battle (Mac vs. PC).
I must admit that I always enjoyed the commercials because they were often spot on about the problems that a PC would have, and a Mac didn’t. It was a clever and quiet way of introducing the Mac to ‘regular’ people that doesn’t really know what a Macintosh is all about. People are now speculating about what’s next in the Apple era of advertising. The actual ‘Get a Mac’ campaign and all the TV ads has been removed from the Apple website, and now there’s only facts and reasons about the world of Macs and why you should get one.
So, what’s next? The problem hereafter for Apple will not be to tell people how good they really are – it will be to create a new, successful, interesting and fun campaign that can bring the essence of the brand further into the future. In two weeks Apple and Steve Jobs will open this years ‘Apple Worldwide Developers Conference’ in San Francisco, which will probably reveal many interesting stories. That tells me that we shouldn’t have to wait too long before the new introduction of Mac takes place. The question is; how creative will they be? In the meantime, you can check out this mash-up clip from all the ‘Get a Mac’ videos we’ve been seeing throughout the years. Enjoy!
If you don’t know what Spotify is already, then you should by now – especially since the new update as of yesterday will make Steve Jobs run for cover with his precious iTunes. It’s been out there for a couple of short years – exploding first through Scandinavia and further on finding its way out in Europe. It’s a music service software that let’s you stream and play any music through the Internet directly on your computer and even your iPhone. Yes, other software like Pandora and Last.fm are out there as well, but appear totally irrelevant in comparison.
Imagine your iTunes filled with everything you could ever ask for, but that’s taking no hard disk space. I know what you’re thinking – so, what if I’m out and there’s no reception on my iPhone, or I have lost Internet in my house? Well, then you can download your playlists to an offline mode that will act just like any MP3 player, even if you are connected or not. Pure brilliance. Unfortunately, they haven’t released it in the US yet – Spotify is fighting with licenses and bigger record companies for access, and it shouldn’t be too far now. My way (and many others that are living in the US) around it is; I registered for free in Sweden while I was there, and when I’m now a subscriber every month ($10) I get a premium account which let’s me ‘travel’ with the service indefinitely–otherwise it would shut me down after 2 weeks abroad.
The new update (called ‘The Next Generation’) features pure awesomeness. With your own individual profile on Spotify you can now connect with your friends on Facebook, or whomever you’d like – and share tracks, playlists and artists with easy clicks. With your own inbox you can send and receive songs – you can ‘star’ favorites and let your wireless connection share info between your devices. It’s now even more about sharing, and who doesn’t want great, daily recommendations from other music lovers around their social network? Read about the release and get excited. Soon, when the US will get access, I’m seriously saying that Apple and iTunes will have a hard time competing. This is by far one of the greatest softwares I have ever experienced, and I do like to pride myself in good things that are Swedish. Let the music free!
The people at ViralBlog.com talk about ’7 solid social media marketing trends’, and it’s quite interesting. For example, according to them, things like Facebook Pages will take a brand nowhere. At the same time, an upcoming trend involves hiring specialized social media content managers that can push your game further and create content and interesting ways to infiltrate the social media scene.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter (and others) can help brands integrate with their users, customers, etc., on a continual basis. It gives them the opportunity to combine websites and related audio/video content to their brands, connecting users to each other as well as to the brands. In return they’ll share your interests with their networks. It sounds logical and obvious, and it is.
Another idea brought up in the article is a push for more online stores on social networks (something that makes a lot of sense to me). If people know exactly what they want and can get it online, they will. It saves them time and money.
I also believe that a brand (digital or not) must follow the social media scene in order to survive. If you’re not always engaging with your audience online through interesting and compelling stories, the risk will be that your competitor does. The social media geeks seem to get it while many brands don’t. What do you think? Read the full article, here.
Twitter is what’s social media is becoming. It never stops growing. I have an account but don’t really like updating on-the-go – mainly because I’m terrible at keeping up with it. What I like about it is to follow others – not necessarily people but brands, organizations and even causes. I use it like another type of Google Reader. Very recently, low-price airline JetBlue launched a new promotion for their 10th anniversary, where they handed out free tickets to their Twitter-followers in Manhattan. The location of the giveaways was only announced via their Twitter account. The people chasing the tickets had to bring some JetBlue-related stuff to the destinations in order to get their award, and by doing so; they had to research JetBlue on the web.
At each destination there was over 300 tickets waiting for each crowd. Within minutes each time after the release, they were gone. Clever, I must say. This can obviously be risky business, but I actually like this form of marketing. If you can engage people, make something good, get a smile or two back – you have won so much more than new business. I would argue that your reputation is by far more important than the profit, even in shorter terms. Have a look at JetBlue’s Twitter account, apparently the journey continues. This is exactly what Twitter is for in my opinion – to connect people and to connect businesses, to enlighten us but also to engage us on a daily basis. Give something, and you’ll receive something back.
Since Valentine’s Day just passed us by, I thought it was suitable to bring up a small company in New York, called Urban Signals, to the love-searching spotlight. This newly started company, with their iPhone app as the main focus has been gaining a lot of media attention lately.A work in progress, the idea is to flirt and connect with people in your surroundings and see if they’re ready for bonding using the GPS capability in your phone. The CEO of the company got her vision when she realized that there were so many connections that got lost each day, and she wanted that to change. Basically you send out a signal through the app to whomever shows up on your radar with the hopes for a response. With your own profile you can easily share whatever information you want. The system is built so that abuse doesn’t take place – this works by giving the signaled person an option to respond or deny your signal request. If it’s a positive answer then you can continue engaging with that person by asking a question, similar to a live chat or messaging. Also, the radar never tells the other person where exactly you are unless you want it to do so – that’s all up to you of course and there’s a “meet up” button for that.
At their blog you can follow the ongoing development and events and see what’s next, or even follow the ‘Hook-up Van’ on its mission to connect the people of New York. Apparently, more media coverage is around the corner. I really like this idea and hope that San Francisco will experience the radar soon. It’s quite innovative, and I see this as a meeting point for more spontaneous people, that don’t necessarily want to go through several steps in order to engage with each other. Apps that are made to connect people are a brilliant thing. So what are the risks you might wonder? I don’t know yet, but I guess that wide usage will tell us more. Hopefully we’ll meet out there soon ready for coffee, a drink or even dinner. As their motto says, “Urban Signals is taking love back to the streets!” Check out their website here.
