Constant Learning Through Marketing

The year 2010 has truly proven to have changed the digital landscape. Only a few years ago, the term “mobile application” was infrequently used and bizarre to the average person. Now, however, mobile applications, more commonly referred to as “Apps”, has become a household term. These Apps not only provide mobile users with games and other forms of entertainment, they also enable users to access the Internet from anywhere! With this appification and mobilization of the web, as well as with group buying start-ups sprouting here and there, marketers of today are definitely faced with new challenges. We can no longer rely on the marketing tools and efforts which may have worked in the years past—with the way technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Marketers should therefore learn how to use these changes to their advantage—and this web marketing philosophy blog helps by aptly stating what marketers should learn in this digital era.

Live Chat with Jeremiah Owyang, IMMAP

When Music Videos Are No Longer Enough

Music has always been a huge part of people’s lives. Just a quick walk out on the city streets will reveal a good number of people with earphones glued to their ears and feet happily tapping to some beat. Everyday, it seems, newer songs are being composed and created—and what better way is there to promote a new song than by video?

In the 1980s, back when the television set was the most popular tool for entertainment, MTV was born, and music videos became a big hit. These videos certainly helped promote whatever song they were being accompanied with. Even at present, with the Internet taking over other forms of media (including the TV), music videos still find their way to a big audience. A quick search for the most viewed videos on YouTube (the most popular video-hosting website) will return mostly music videos from different artists. However, at the end of the day, music videos, no matter how creative or unique they may be, are still really just videos accompanied by music. With the fast-paced change in technology these days, it won’t be long until we find music videos to be just a thing of the past.

The band Arcade Fire seems to have noticed this. In promoting their new song entitled “We Used to Wait,” they decided to take their music video to another level. Working with Google (which also took this chance to promote Google Chrome and Google Maps), the song was made to accompany not only just one music video, but an interactive series of videos designed to trigger the viewer’s memories of his/her own past.

It starts off with the website asking for the address of the hometown you grew up in. A browser will pop up and the video starts off with a person running down a street. Moments later, another browser will appear with the image of the streets of your own hometown, and a small figure running down it—the person running earlier is now you. Other browsers pop up with images of birds flying and close-ups of your street, all these playing in time with the song. The highlight of the video comes later, when a browser appears asking you to write a letter to your younger self. The letter then becomes animated and becomes part of the video, turning everything more personal.

Songs are most often liked because people can relate to them. Now, this particular song by Arcade Fire may not appeal to other people because the lyrics may not be of any significance to them. This interactive video, however, literally takes images and memories of the viewer’s past to make it something of significance to every person who sees it. In the end, the song and the video only reminds yourself of who you were, and it becomes something of personal importance to you. The song, then, becomes your song—and this inevitably makes a good number of people want to purchase the song, merely because it triggers this emotional memory in them.

An Opportunity to Engage with Jeremiah Owyang, IMMAP Keynote Speaker 2010

Start Right, Start White, Start Online

Celebrity. Everyone wants to be one, even if it's just for a little bit. And with the Internet, everyone is practically a mini-celebrity in their own right. So when you offer little girls Php 100,000 and a chance ot be Myx Celebrity VJ, get ready to watch a deluge of singing 12 year old girls in front of their webcams.

This was what happened in Skinwhite Teens 'Search for the Next Sam' campaign. Targetting girls aged 9-14 years old who happen to love to sing or at least have the guts to belt out a tune, these girls were tasked to record themselves singing (or lipsynching) the Skinwhite theme song, "Start Right, Start White" and to upload their videos to www.brandnewme.ph

Knowing these girls are online all the time (on Facebook, Twitter or just surfing the web), it wasn't surprising that the campaign received over 150 videos ranging from the simple girl in front of a webcam, to the more production heavy ones (where you would find amazing editing and change of location!).

And who knew there were so many ways to use the Skinwhite Teens bottle in the video?! There were those that simply had the bottle in the same shot, but then there was the Skinwhite bottle-as-a-microphone or shots of girls applying lotion to their arms in between verses. Leave it to the girls to get creative!

Though there was an on-ground audition, the online auditions were still beneficial to those from farflung provinces in Mindanao like Surigao and up north to the Cagayan Valley! Those who couldn't audition in real life made up for it with their sweeping locations (imagine a litle girl singing in a rice field) and multiple costume changes.

The target market's affinity with online social networks helped the girls in promoting their videos too. On Skinwhite Teens' Facebook Like Page, one would find links to their videos asking people to watch and 'like' their entries. The result? Over 25,000+ likes on the girls videos.

From the many entries, four winners were selected including one grand winner Gabriella Louise Lopez who just got herself a sting on Myx and is not Php 100,00 richer. Watch out, this 12 year old girl may be a household name soon.

The Jeepney Company Culture

Simple SEO, Social Media, Design, and Usability Philosophy

Last week, I've launched my personal blog at SEO Taoist--an Internet marketing philosophy blog that deals with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Social Media Marketing, User Experience, and all those other stuff that goes with the package.

I recently posted an article about how bad company cultures hinder overall growth and success of businesses and their employees. Sadly, employees are the majority of all companies, and they themselves contribute to this counterintuitive company culture I call the Jeepney Company Culture.

Do you work for one? Or worse, maybe you're running one?

Read the entire article at here.

Interactive TV FTW! Ever catch Sarah Geronimo's Hair Is Your Moment Microseries?

A number of weeks back, Sunsilk launched it’s first ever interactive microseries entitled “Hair is Your Moment” starring Sarah Geronimo, Mark Bautista, and Guji Lorenzana. The weekly two-minute episodes are first shown on ASAP on Sundays and they are made available online minutes after. You can catch them here which features your typical rags to riches, unknown to pop princess story. What’s not typical, though, is how the next microsodes play out. After each microsode, the viewers are presented with two choices of what events would unfold in the next one.

This creates for a compelling storyline that fans couldn’t help but fall head over heels for. Clearly, Sunsilk's strategy directed the fans to purchase the product on panic-mode in order to vote for the chosen ending with a sense of urgency! Voting became a weekly ritual to Sarah Geronimo fans and other enthusiasts who simply found the microseries extremely funny!

In this sense, by putting the fate of the series in the viewers’ hands, the brand was able to create an emotional attachment with their target market. Having them win instant prizes by participating helped as well. The fact that Sunsilk Sachets were sold out EVERYWHERE serves as a testament to the success of the campaign.

Highlights from Sunsilk's Hair Is Your Moment Microseries Campaign:

• The microsite has over 65,000 pageviews (now running on eight weeks) with almost 30,000 unique visitors with a good number of minutes per user spent on the site
• Facebook is the microsite’s number one referrer, mostly because of the engagement that Jenny Raymundo (Sarah Geronimo’s character) has with her fans on her FB fan page
• Some entries on Jenny Raymundo’s Diary had around 60 comments on them! To think that this is not exactly a social networking site.
• Youtube views for all microsodes reaching 150,000, amplifying the YouTube hairisyourmoment Channel even more.
• 3,155 fans on Facebook and counting!
• Fan interaction on all platforms (Microsite, Blog, Facebook, YouTube, Friendster, Twitter) just proves to be EPIC! Fans are constantly talking to Sarah, Mark and Guji’s characters and the conversations are fun, flirty, cute, genuine, angry, indeed a total mix of strong emotions! These fans are enthusiastically (more like borderline-crazily) following the Hair Is Your Moment Microseries on extreme 24/7 mode- no sleeping required!
• An influx of fan art occupies the Photos section of Jenny Raymundo's Facebook Fan Page! Fans would send in artwork and fellow fans would comment in the quirkiest way possible. Our friends from Sunsilk did not let this pass without selecting 2 deserving ones and giving them autographed hard bound images of Sarah Geronimo.

We may have seen the future of Philippine Television. It will not come as a surprise if a full teleserye takes this very interactive route one of these days, don't you think?