Brands Punk'd By Social Media

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn't understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant. 

Criteria of "Punk'd" includes a situation where the story would have not been told if social media was not available, or if social media enhanced the situation.

This doesn't include fake blogs, companies who deliberately tried to cheat the system get their own honorable mention.

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2008

• Louis Vuitton gets Brand-Jacked in Anti-Genocide Campaign Artist creates and sells T-shirt demonstrating how the media turns a deaf ear to real world tragedies such as genocide in Dafur, infringing on LV logo.  LV fires back, with lawsuit, a groundswell begins. Submitted by Søren Storm Hansen
• Burger King exec trash talks using daughter's email Not sure why he didn't just create a new email address, that would have been a lot safer. Submitted by Hilker.
• Johnson and Johnson to bloggers: Hurry up and get dis-invited Sounds like a mis-coordination, bad timing, and not a well thought through process that ended up getting scobleized, and Maryamized.
•  Anonymous Unmasks Church of Scientology The church of Scientology has been criticized by an anonymous group, a faceless mass that has created videos, staged marches and protests, and is subvert the Church from around the internet.

2007

• Target's Rounders program "This is our secret game" Target encouraged it's premier members in the rounders program to pump up it's brand in a Facebook group, sadly, the covert operation ended up on blogs and then mainstream media
• HD DVD Decoded by Digg, unDugg, then Dugg again Digg users publish HD code, industry freaks out, Digg maintains stance.
• Wholefoods CEO caught being a troll Whole Foods CEO, was anonymously trashing competitors and pumping company up on Yahoo finance boards.
• Apple's dirty little secret plastered over NYC Apparently, 18 months is all the iPod will run before you'll need to buy a new one, says this video, where street teams went around defacing ads. Submitted by David Churbuck (I got his name right this time)
• Delta holds customers hostage What's worse than being held prisoner on Delta's dirty plane? (Video), watching the crew getting off da plane.  Oh, and no food, crying babies, but one talented videographer.
• Taco Bell's infestation crawls into YouTube A minor rat problem moved it's way to YouTube, spreading faster and farther than expected, a total of more than one million views for all videos. Submitted by Graham Hill

 

2006

• Data storage blogger posts industry price lists, sales reps cry f#ck! Robin Harris, one of the most well known of the data storage blogosphere posts price lists that were received from various customers.
• Dell Laptop Explodes, news at 11 --on YouTube More bad news for Dell, as laptops explode in Japan, all can see online.
• Comcast suffers from Narcolepsy Sleepy Techician caught on YouTube, then fired.  Also see Comcast must die blog, submitted by Jeff Jarvis.
• Hitachi Hell gets the finger Angry customer gets bad service, writes long experience, and flips off HQ in picture, he's also an influencer in the gaming community
• The naked NOKA chocolate uncovered A premium chocolatier (Noka) had a tremendous markup ($309- $2,080 per pound) of their secretly re-packaged chocolate, was exposed as a fraud and spread on blogs. And their google results is really painful. Submitted by Whitney.
• AOL gets canceled --how to get get on my nerves This guy really bothers me, I can see why Vincent Ferrari was miffed.  It's clear, he was dealing with the customer retention department. Nothing worse than the feeling of being held hostage.  Submitted by David Alston.
• Airplane fiasco's spread online: JetBlue There are so many examples, such as a YouTube testimonial about JetBlue's 8+ hours stranded in terminal. Related: JetBlue's CEO responds after flights are cut months later due to storm.
• Starbucks Brandjacked by YouTube Video Who wants a tasty frappuccino when there are kids starving?  This was one of the first cases of brandjacking we saw.

2005

• Why we Dwell on Dell Hell Jeff Jarvis launches blog post that sends a flurry of PR negativty at Dell's poor service, it's since been improved.

2004

• Kryptonite unlocked Locks were disabled using a simple bic pen cap, spread on forums and blogs, one of the earliest examples that got mainstream attention.

2003

• The Barbera Streisand Effect Singer star tries to remove content from internet, it all goes downhill from there. I actually learned about this from reading my colleagues Groundswell book

Also see: 8 Groundswell Examples: News, Education, Religion, Cops, Restaurants, Music, Conferences, and Analysts

This is a cross post from the Web Strategy blog

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Webcast with Visible Technologies and Microsoft

[Posted by Peter Kim]

On Thursday May 22nd I'll be participating in a webcast with Blake Cahill from Visible Technologies and Marty Collins from Microsoft.  We'll be talking about "Unlocking Social Media’s ROI through Engagement & Participation."  Registration is free and we'll begin at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern.

If you are on the fence about brand monitoring or just want to learn more about how it's being put to good use, this is your chance to ask questions.

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

Happy Earth Day 2008!

[Posted by Dave Frankland]

While much of the world paints itself green today in observance of Earth Day (being Irish I thought that was a March 17 initiative), it seems like an appropriate occasion to stop and ask “how green is your interactive marketing”?  Last Friday, we published a report Direct Marketing Needs A Green Wake-up Call– but what about interactive marketers?

We heard from direct marketers that many have decreased direct mail in favor of other channels. But, as we dug into their motivations, saving money and improving response rates were far more likely reasons for switching channels than environmental concern. I applaud their efforts to save money and improve response rates, but it's surprising that in an industry that practically has a green bull's eye painted on it so many have simply ignored consumer sentiment in this area.

And, while on the one hand, it seems easy to say that email, for example, is a much more environmentally-friendly alternative to direct mail, does that take into account the computers, PDAs, and servers used to send and receive interactive marketing messages (for more on this concept, see my colleague Chris Mines’ research on Green Technology Consumers)?

Direct marketing clearly isn’t perfect, but it’s worth asking the question, today of all days, how environmentally friendly is your interactive marketing?

Our Ears and Eyes Open: Please fill out our Survey

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

A few weeks ago, we launched a survey to get your feedback about this blog.  Frankly, we've only had a few responses, and wanted to hear from more of you. 

Your feedback will help shape the direction of our future blog activities, so since you're taking the time to read this message, it's in your best interest to let us know what you think.

Please give us your feedback for this Interactive Marketing Blog Survey!

Three key applications for brand monitoring

[Posted by Peter Kim]

As you may know, I've been following the brand monitoring market for a couple of years and since publishing the Q3 2006 Forrester Wave on the space, it's clear that the market has shifted.  That's why I plan on updating the Wave in Q3 2008.

In the meantime - it's clear that not all brand monitoring firms are created equally or should be used for the same purposes.  But marketers who don't work to understand the differences before sending out an RFP or running a pilot are in essence using Plinko as their selection process.

I believe that three primary applications of brand monitoring have started to surface, based on buyer goals, vendor capabilities and intent, and business needs.  Clients can read the full research, "New Uses For Brand Monitoring," which explains how and why the three applications matter.  The summary:

J.D. Power and Associates acquired brand monitoring firm Umbria, combining industry-focused consumer satisfaction and rankings with consumer-generated media (CGM) insights. The deal highlights the use of brand monitoring as a key input to formulating marketing, brand, and product strategy. Interactive marketers and social media strategists interested in using brand monitoring must choose a tool based on business objectives, recognizing that the market now addresses three distinct applications: 1) mining customer insight to formulate strategy; 2) quantifying social media to compare with other metrics; and 3) identifying influencers in order to participate in online conversations.

Much deeper analysis forthcoming later this year.  In the meantime, Forrester clients - feel free to set up an inquiry via your account manager to learn more.

P.S. I think our Forrester Marketing Blog Feedback Survey is still open...

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

Numeric Scoring: The Key To Lead Management Success

[Posted by Laura Ramos]

Recently I saw a preview of Eloqua’s spring release and it got me thinking about the role lead scoring plays in determining campaign effectiveness.  I hadn’t seen the product in a while and was impressed with the UI improvements the Eloqua team has produced. They have added new capabilities for delivering highly personalized direct mail, SMS/voice reminders, and on-demand fax and RSS delivery – interesting stuff that, while I’d need to talk to a client or two to be convinced of their specific usefulness, show that Eloqua is delivering a broader range of lead nurturing, drip marketing capabilities. Lastly, new campaign design UI will help shorten the time it takes to get first campaigns up and running.

With these changes, I see Eloqua – like many of the other firms I mentioned in my prior post – moving the B2B marketing conversation ahead in an important direction. The key to getting a campaign up and running quickly is not to make it easier to launch more campaigns but instead to focus marketing attention on the results – well qualified leads. And this is where I think the marketing rubber hits the sales road.

As an analyst who has written about lead management extensively – I am still amazed at how many marketers feel challenged to produce leads that sales appreciate. The bickering between marketers (who feel sales doesn’t follow up on the great leads they generate) and sales (who feel the quality of said leads is subject to debate) seems to continue unabated. The few marketers who end the arguing figure out early that quantifying lead quality is essential.

In my view, these marketers live by four best practices. They:
1) Sit with sales, talk about leads, and come to an agreement about what is a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). What are the characteristics of a lead that make it worth working from sales perspective?  And they are prepared to have this conversation every quarter.

2) Assign numeric scores to the different criteria – both explicit (size, industry, title, budget, etc.) and implicit (behavior, activity, interest, etc.) – that both sales and marketing believe distinguish hot leads from the rest. Specific criteria carry specific point values, like +5 for downloading a white paper and +15 for attending a webinar.

3) Use these criteria and weights to score raw leads (contacts, inquiries, replies, etc.), and set a numeric threshold that leads must attain before they earn the MQL status and get passed to sales. They also adjust scores downward as contacts go inactive or age.

4) Rescore contacts place in nurturing, education, or development campaigns. They work to understand what optimum scores are for each category of lead type.  This score can vary by product line or geography or other company-specific factors, so they don’t assume that one size fits all. Again, scores change with activity levels and age.

Is this all there is to demonstrating campaign effectiveness?  No, but it’s a start. Using numerical, quantifiable scores to grade leads turns the art of marketing into a science and marketers who use this approach tell me numeric scoring is one of the biggest factors in raising marketing’s value to the sales organization. But like most good science, it takes time and effort to perfect.  So I commend Eloqua on their next generation of marketing software and their efforts dedicated to the process of making marketing more accountable.

I would like to hear about your scoring approaches and what you have done to achieve a common definition of qualified leads with sales.

Tags: B2B marketing, lead management, lead scoring :: Add to del.icio.us

We’re renaming the blog

[Posted by Christine Spivey Overby]

I lead Forrester’s Interactive Marketing team, and I’d like to welcome to the newly-minted Forrester Blog For Interactive Marketers. Some of you may be thinking - Wait! I’ve been coming to this blog for years. What gives?

It’s true that for some time now, we’ve been posting on a variety of topics. But as those of you who have or follow blogs know, over time each blog starts to take on its own life with a decidedly unique voice. This one has become the de facto place for our interactive marketing analysts to share their musings and opinions on all things digital. So we’re making it official, and in doing so aiming to bring you content with a laser-focus on your role. So stick around for posts from Pete, Shar, Jeremiah, Julie, Rebecca, Josh, Charlene, and me.

You’ll still be able to find other marketing topics covered on similar Forrester blogs. For example, my colleague Jaap Favier leads our Marketing Leadership team, and he, Mary Beth Kemp, Brian Haven, and others will post on a blog dedicated to Marketing Leaders and CMOs, which you can find here.

We hope you enjoy this focus. As always, we’d love to hear you questions, comments, and feedback!

Happy blogging!

Christine

[Posted by Christine Spivey Overby]

[Posted by Christine Spivey Overby]

[Posted by Christine Spivey Overby]

[Posted by Christine Spivey Overby]

[Posted by Christine Spivey Overby]

An Agency's First Step To Getting "Connected"

[Posted by Peter Kim]

When queuing up this entry, I noticed that there's no category for "agency" related posts.  That's OK because Mary Beth Kemp, my colleague and co-author of The Connected Agency report, has taken the lead on a new Forrester blog called Agency Futures.  So I'm cross-posting this, there.

A lot needs to happen before agencies get Connected.  The clear first step for most shops is building digital acumen.  So I've published a new piece called "Agencies Must Build Digital Skills To Survive" - pretty much to the point, eh?

Here's a [long] excerpt:

Traditional advertising agencies -- marketing services providers that have built global brands through mass media -- need to prove their digital mettle now more than ever. Although late 90s startups like Scient, Viant, and ZEFER flamed out, firms like Critical Mass, Organic, and Avenue A|Razorfish have risen high above the dot-bomb wreckage and are well-positioned for success today.

Clients are shifting business to digital shops, and consumers have turned away from media channels that built the agency industry and toward emerging Internet media. Ad agencies must build new interactive competencies quickly in order to succeed. How? They must build digital skills with a three-tiered approach of establishing digital commitment at the executive level, retraining existing staffers, and building a pipeline of future talent.

So what's the secret to success?  Hire a chief digital officer?  Tell all your staffers to get on Facebook?  Go 2.0 with your web site?

Maybe all that and more...

Feel free to continue the discussion on the Agency Futures blog (comments will be closed here).

P.S. Our Forrester Marketing Blog Feedback Survey needs your feedback just like that first cup of coffee Monday morning.

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

US Mobile Marketing: Easier Done Than Said

[Posted by Peter Kim]

Confused about mobile marketing?  Don't be.  If you're an interactive marketer, you probably already know more about the channel than you think.

Forrester clients can learn more in a piece of research we published yesterday.  Here's the executive summary:

Eighty-three percent of marketers believe that mobile marketing will grow in effectiveness over the next three years. But although US marketers see the channel's growth potential, a technical acronym soup and low levels of current adoption among many mobile marketing formats await early entrants. So to test the new medium while managing these early risks, US marketers should apply lessons learned from other digital channels to launch effective mobile campaigns. Also key to success: targeting the small but influential base of consumers who have already experienced mobile ads.

So let's move from talking to doing already!

P.S. If you have a moment, I'd welcome your feedback via our Forrester Marketing Blog Feedback Survey.

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

Survey: Feedback Wanted For Forrester's Marketing Blog

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Listening, the improving is a skill required for every business, and at Forrester, there's no exception.

In an effort to best understand how well our Forrester blog is doing, we're launching a survey to gauge your feedback.  We want to know what you think of our blog, and how we can improve,  so please take a few minutes to offer us feedback.  We will also be sharing our findings on this blog in public, so thank you for taking the time.

We're seeking the opinion of folks who have been reading our blog for a while, so if you're new reader, you can bypass this survey.

Thank you for taking the Forrester Marketing Blog Feedback Survey.

Thanks to our start researchers Jennifer Joseph and  Cynthia Pflaum for their expert help.

Forrester's Marketing Conference Day 2: Understanding Your Customers Through Engagement

Designing For Engagement, Kerry Bodine, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Sitting in the front row from Forrester's Marketing Forum 2008, the theme for today's event with over 800 attendees being Marketing's New Imperative For Success: Engagement

Voices from the Audience:

• UK's Hayden, who was our virtual guest who's question was asked and answered in the Ustream Channel enjoys participating.
• David Berkowitz watches the chat room from NYC
• Adam Cohen reveals that The Future Will Be Televised...With Social Media
• David Deal comments on George Colony's keynote in Your employee, your blogger
• Commetrcs questions if Forrester conference and Twitter - does live tweeting help engage conference delegates?

Live Streaming the Morning Keynotes:
Harley Manning (Setting the Stage) and Kerry Bodine (Engagement), 52 Minutes

MicroBlogging: Twitter
Members are using their laptops and mobile devices to interact with each other using Twitter, a form of Microblogging.  Some of them are tagging their posts (called "tweets") with the event tag, you can view them all here.

Select Tweets include:

• MichelleBB : Working to get all FedEx Kinkos up to standards of brand. They welcome that feedback.  Only way they'll get better.
• MichelleBB :  Ouch!  Kerry just called out Harley's fanny pack
• melmcbride : Kerry Bodine's talk about emotional connection is amazing. I want to blog it once the vid is available as an embed
• Rumford :  @worleygirl you give away the appetizers and sometimes the dinner. people love the knowledge sharing and become loyal
• nickhuhn :  forrester CEO George Colony re: his blogging: i can't believe MSFT isn't behind typepad or wordpress as bad as they are ;)

Pictures:
Below are select images, but to see all public photos peruse this flickr tag ForrMarketing08,also see Jeremy Pepper's set, and Forrester Research's set.   Select photos, including those from Jeremy Pepper:

Forrester Marketing Conference Day 1: Understanding Your Customers Through Engagement

(Above Photo by Jeremy Pepper)

Jeremiah Owyang:  Sitting in the front row from Forrester's Marketing Forum 2008, the theme for today's event with over 800 attendees being Marketing's New Imperative For Success: Engagement

Voices from the Audience:

• Rodney Rumford is excited to blog from the Forrester Marketing Forum in LA.
• Rodney's live blogs Brian Haven's Engagement presentation.
• Marianne Richmond couldn't attend, but writes Forrester Marketing Forum 2008: Engagement and I.
• David Deal of Avenue A Razorfish wraps his thoughts on Engagement.
• Rather than Blog, Amy Worley used Twitter for her whole experience.

Live Streaming the Morning Keynotes:
Harley Manning (Setting the Stage) and Brian Haven (Engagement), 54 Minutes

Speaking of Engagement... As we live streamed from the front row, we responded to questions from the Ustream chat room.  One virtual attendee from UK (named Haydens30), asked a question on Engagement, which was then asked by Josh Bernoff at the live event and answered by Brian Haven.  There were hundreds that watched live, and over 70 were in the chat room, you can watch the keynotes in the player below:

MicroBlogging: Twitter
Members are using their laptops and mobile devices to interact with each other using Twitter, a form of Microblogging.  Some of them are tagging their posts (called "tweets") with the event tag, you can view them all here.

Select Tweets include:

• adamcohen : next speaker: Emmanuel Brown of Nike Jordan brand - he's wearing Air Jordans, love it
• adamcohen :  Engagement is the4 i's:  level of involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence over time #forrmarketing0
• Jeremy Pepper:  Engagement is close to becoming just a buzz word bc of overuse.
• Robert Scoble @jowyang 's CEO called him into the office. Now if he were REALLY hip he would have sent a Twitter message. :-)  (George reads this blog, so he'll see this)
• Alex Nesbitt @jowyang - why such an anti-social conference? You guys needs a way for people to ask unfiltered questions or text in questions. (my respone)
• Michelle BB notices the wifi straining: "need more bandwidth... "

Pictures:
Below are a few pics I've taken, but to see all public photos peruse this flickr tag ForrMarketing08,also see Jeremy Pepper's set,

Eating Our Own Dog Food
At Forrester, we preach to our clients to follow the POST Methodology, here at the forum, we've set up roles, processes, and have identified the key objectives we want to achieve by using social media at our forum, have a written plan with success metrics, and will report back to our stakeholders how the event went --both good and bad.  In the spirit of transparency, here's some of what the plan that was shared among the internal team: Energizing, rather than create most of the content, we encourage our attendees to publish, we'll link to it from this blog post.  Supporting: We encourage attendees to join our Facebook page and network with each other.  Embracing: We're using this feedback from attendees to learn how to improve our future events.

Select photos (some from Jeremy Pepper)

 

Keeping up with Marketing Forum 2008

[Posted by Peter Kim]

I'm at Forrester's Marketing Forum in Los Angeles today.  And again, I'm up at 4 am local - is this technically jet lag?  I won't be doing a lot of blogging or tweeting because my schedule's full.  However, you can get updates from a variety of sources:

- Forrester's Marketing Blog, which has an embedded Meebo chat
- Twitter - not just me, but also Jeremiah, Charlene, Josh, Adam, Amy, Rodney, Nick, Michelle, Barbara, Jeremy, and others
- Blogs:  Jeremy Pepper, Rodney Rumford, Jennifer Jones, Marianne Richmond
- Photos on Flickr

If you're here and see me around, please say hi!  I'll be doing Q&A this morning after Brian's keynote speech on engagement, doing intro and Q&A for Emmanuel Brown from Nike Jordan Brand, and running a track session this afternoon with BzzAgent's Dave Balter and JD Power/Umbria's Janet Eden-Harris.

[Posted by Peter Kim]

[Posted by Peter Kim]

Getting ready for Forrester's Marketing Forum

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

We’re gearing up for next week's Marketing Forum in Los Angeles, with over 800 expected attendees, the company is really excited to deliver great content, facilitate networking, and showcase technology vendors that help solve marketing problems.

The speaker lineup is impressive, aside form Forrester analysts presenting their key industry findings we’ve speakers from Fedex, Nike, Wal-Mart, Dell, Leapfrog, and more.  The event team has been working hard to prepare all the logistics, and I've already listened in to dress rehearsals for presentations (our speakers rehearse dozens of times, in order to deliver high value) Also, each of the attendees are getting a copy of the upcoming Groundswell book. 

I’ve been asked to do what I’m best at, help facilitate social media during the event, so I’ll be sitting in the front row in the blogger bullpen, if you’re a attending and attend to blog, stream, tweet, the conference, come up and sit with me, or please say hi.   Looking forward to seeing you next week. 

Curious to what happened last time? You can check out the last time I went to the consumer forum day 1 and day 2. 

Leave a comment below if you're going, we look forward to meeting you.

(Tag for the event is forrmarketing08)

Umbria acquired by J.D. Power

[Posted by Peter Kim]

Congratulations in order this morning to Janet, Howard, and the rest of the team at Umbria.  The brand monitoring firm was acquired today by J.D. Power & Associates, the customer satisfaction research company.

The significance of this acquisition lies in the acquirer - McGraw-Hill/JDPower is different type of company than Nielsen and TNS - and will use brand monitoring differently.  One thing in common - another brand monitoring brand name disappears.  Umbria will be folded into their new parent company, while Buzzmetrics/Intelliseek have disappeared into Nielsen Online and Cymfony now operates as part of TNS media.

I have a short research piece publishing soon for Forrester clients.

[Posted by Peter Kim]

The significance of this acquisition lies in the acquirer - McGraw-Hill/JDPower is different type of company than Nielsen and TNS - and will use brand monitoring differently.  One thing in common - another brand monitoring brand name disappears.  Umbria will be folded into their new parent company, while Buzzmetrics/Intelliseek have disappeared into Nielsen Online and Cymfony now operates as part of TNS media.

I have a short research piece publishing soon for Forrester clients.

"Digital" does not equal "interactive" marketing

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

On a recent trip to Shanghai I attended a huge party for Adidas.  I was there with a friend of a friend who works for Ticketmaster and specialize in creating exclusive events and PR for brands, bands and celebrities.  Now this party was thumpin.'  On the top floor of a trendy Shanghai "loft" with a glass floor to see all the way down to the ground 20 odd floors below.  The room was chock full of people, and also huge digital billboards broadcasting Adidas commercials and branding messages.

And yet, amidst all the ice cream cones, pizzas and other more Chinese-ish appetizers, there was very little chance to actually interact with Adidas.  There was plenty of activity, and lots of digital media...but no outlet to actually engage with the Adidas brand.

Perhaps that wasn't the point of the party, and what Adidas wanted was just for people to associate its brand with "cool party."  But I found myself forgetting that Adidas was sponsoring the whole thing.  And it made me realize that "digital marketing" and "interactive marketing" are not at all the same thing.

Here's the definition of interactive marketing I've been using to guide our research:

Technology-enabled marketing that creates a dynamic, personalized and/or two-way dialogue with the consumer.

Does the difference matter to you?  How do you define it?

Case Study: Dissecting the Dell Regeneration Graffiti Facebook Campaign

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Situation
The market pressure to create technology products that protect or at least damage their impact to the environment continues to grow.  Sustainability and green-tech campaigns are coming from nearly every tech company --esp hardware manufactures.  Dell is no exception and launches this Regeneration campaign.

[Dell Leaned on an Active Artist Community in Facebook to Create, Vote, Self-Regulate what it "Means to be Green" Regeneration Campaign]

Goals
I've not spoken with the Dell marketing team, but it's pretty obvious this is a campaign helps to help improve Dell products to be more eco-friendly, and of course, spur affinity torwards the brand from green leaning consumers, the ReGeneration site has more details.

Strategy
Dell Computers, along with Federated Media (A social media marketing agency), and Graffiti Wall (A popular self-expression Facebook application), deployed an interactive marketing campaign that encouraged existing Graffiti artists to be involved in a contest that spurred a member created campaign resulting in affinity towards Dell.  The artists were encouraged to 'own' the message, their creativity would spur a contest, and would continue to fuel the campaign.

Tactics
I was briefed by James Gross, who shares his thoughts mid-flight, a Director at Federated Media, as well as CEO John Battelle (interview), and they explained the contest to me.

1) Existing application with thriving community

Graffiti is a self-expression application in Facebook. It has popular (rated 4 out of 5 stars) Based on 242 reviews, and has 177,506 daily active users.  Rather than creating a new application, this campaign took advantage of an application --and community--that already existed.



2) An art contest: What does Green mean to you?

Facebook members who used Graffiti were encouraged to join in a contest to win a 22" environmentally friendly Dell monitor (appropriate for artists) to create art around the theme of "What does Green mean to you?"  The contest lasted for one week


3) Engaged contributors spur theme Over 7000 pieces of artwork were created and submitted to the contest.  If you watch the replay of the art being created, you'll see hidden messages (like easter eggs) from the artists as they discuss what green means to them. Many of the drawings had the Dell logo or the regeneration logo embedded in it. The Regeneration microsite promotes a few contributors.

4) Self Regulation There were few negative pics that would detract from the campaign, as the community of existing artists will self-regulate and vote off pics that were not appropriate.

5) Community Voting and Winners Announced

Voting began on the second week by the members and over one million votes were cast.  The winners were from United States, Canada, Sweden and Maldives.  You can see the actual winners here, or click image.

Results The campaign was a success, thousands of engaged members participated, created the campaign on behalf of Dell (similar to the Chevy Tahoe campaign a few years ago), and the community was rewarded.  I don't know for sure, but I'll guess the majority of the campaign dollars were spent creating the microsite, then hiring FM, and working with Graffiti.  The monitors, were likely less than a $1000 each. 

Over 7300 Graffitis created from Jan. 16th-Jan 23rd around the theme of “What Does Green Mean to You” Over 1150 fans of the contest

Over 1,000,000 votes were logged from Jan. 26th-Jan.31st for the artwork. (Here are the Top 150 based on votes)

Over 1,000 ideas have now been submitted over at ReGeneration.org

209 comments to the post at ReGeneration.org

Over 197 blog mentions in Technorati

What could have been better
When it comes to social media, the mentality of short lived campaigns should go away.  Communities existed before a brand reaches to them and after the campaign stops.  Marketers should plan for long term engagements with these people, rather than short two week spurts.  There was clearly traction here and now's the time to step on the gas and continue forward.

Secondly, the artwork created by the winners (and runner ups) should be included in future products, such as digital wallpapers, in the primary branding for Dell, and even the artists should be given an option to continue as sponsored artists.  With the relationship forming, take it to the next level.  Encourage artwork to be part of next generation green computers, with proceeds going to non-profits or back to the artists to continue forth.

Thirdly, the campaign was limited to Facebook, which isn't the extent of artists on the web, as well as limited to other social networks such as Bebo or MySpace where similar communities can be found.  The contest should have been created not just within the walls of a closed gardens, but also spread to the open web.

Summary
Unlike most marketing campaigns that deploy heavy ads, fake viral videos, or message bombardment, this campaign let go to gain more.   Overall, this is a successful campaign as they turned the action over to the community, let them take charge, decide on the winners, all under the context of the regeneration campaign.  The campaign moved the active community from Facebook closer to the branded Microsite, closer to the corporate website, migrating users in an opt-in manner that lead to hundreds of comments was clever.  Well done.

Articles and Related Case Studies

Article: Virtual art for the natural world

MediaPost Social Media Insider: Maybe Advertising In Social Media Should Be An Oxymoron

LA Times: Web Scout: Spinning through online entertainment and connected culture

Case Study: How Sony connected with the Vampires Application

Case Study: Facebook Sponsored Group Analysis: Target vs Wal-Mart

Cross posted on the Web Strategy blog

Talking about mobile marketing

[Posted by Peter Kim]

As you may know, my research coverage at Forrester has shifted into mobile marketing.  Last night, I moderated a panel discussion last night for MITX  and we talked about the industry for a couple hours with The Weather Channel, ESPN, Carat, g8wave, and Ringleader Digital.  The three biggest points that came up in discussion:

1. Measurement.  It just isn't there today.  There wasn't a lot of discussion of platforms, but it seems like marketers must broker deals with all kinds of players that operate many different systems.
2. Standards.  Like the rise of online ads - lack of formats and standards.  IAB?  MMA?  Marketers, agencies, publishers, platforms, manufacturers, and carriers need to put their heads together to make mobile ad formats work.
3. Education.  Do you want to learn something new today?  Figure out the difference between on- and off-deck, what is WAP, or why does 3G matter.  Learning about this environment sounds strangely like learning about how the web works a decade ago.

Good crowd and good panel.  Lots of iPhone fans.  Lots of Blackberry users.  And lots of great services, products, and ideas out there - but I think some of the technical complexity and immaturity of the current business opportunity keep mainstream media attention away from the space.

I'll be thinking more about this in the future - next month I'll publish a document outlining how interactive marketers can take what they already know and apply to mobile.

Death By Increased Email Volumes

[By Julie Katz]

Jeremiah just posted on his personal blog that email consumes him - and just about everyone he communicates with at work, on Twitter, via social networks, on blogs. You get the point. Both the volume of personal and marketing emails have increased dramatically since the medium's beginning, and the early adopters are poised to rebel. Yet few marketers and vendors I speak with are slowing down the pace or changing their practices to prepare for a backlash. Now, by backlash, I don't mean that the email world will go completely dark. But I do think marketers need to prepare for a more streamlined approach to direct communication online.

To that end, I have some new research coming out and a session at Forrester's upcoming Marketing Forum that gives marketers some steps to take to becoming more respectful of consumers' limited time.

Like Jeremiah, I'm also interested in comments from marketers and consumers on how you're managing email volumes and anything you've changed in your routine to a) better reach consumers via email (or another direct, interactive channel) or b) triage marketing-related or personal email messages. I, too, am in line for a Xobni beta account, so if anyone has an invite to share, please email me :-) I have managed to limit my own email volumes, despite signing up for every marketing email possible, by setting up a system of folders and flags.

Social Technographics Data Now Available

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Forrester is proud to share select social technographics data in tandem with upcoming book Groundswell by analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li.  Many of us have already read the book, and it supports our thinking, methdology, and recommendations we provide to clients.

We're pleased to share Social Technographics with you, but before you dive in, please follow the following steps:

• First: Understand what Technographics is, start with this eight slide presentation.
• Next: Take a look at the Profile Tool we've provided on the Groundswell site.
• Finally: You can start to develop a strategy after understanding what tools your market is adopting.

Josh Bernoff gives more detail about the tool, from his blog.