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?

Up Next: Pinoy Big Brother Teen Clash of 2010

So ends another season of Pinoy Big Brother. And what a season it was! We saw the emergence of one of the weirdest love teams in Melason and their meteoric rise from obscurity to global recognition. Moreover, we saw the emergence and success of PBB ang Globe’s partnership in bringing exclusive content to Globe Tattoo’s subscribers. The campaign was a definite success as online monthly hits exceeded expectations by 1,600 % and mobile hits almost reached the 20,000 mark… all these considering the project ran for just a number of weeks. Pretty awesome figures, definitely.

A lot of things could be attributed to the success of this endeavor. Content is king definitely, and the promise of exclusive, behind the scenes content proved to be too tempting for eligible users to pass up on… and they definitely weren’t disappointed. The content proved to be very interesting to the point that for those who were able to view the exclusive content, they spent more time on the Globe Tattoo microsite than on the Pinoy Big Brother’s main site. Another element that definitely helped would be the Facebook Connect feature, allowing the visitors to share their thoughts on the site and reflect it on their Facebook accounts. Juicy information sent through the spy texts were also received with much rave, as it gave the vibe of being in the loop no matter where they were ala-Gossip Girl. Hardcore fans were also in for a treat when it was revealed that the subscribers’ votes on who to evict or save from big brother’s house would be counted as six. These privileges were indeed received with arms wide open by Globe Tattoo subscribers. The project’s success, I believe, will continue with the upcoming Pinoy Big Brother Teen Clash of 2010. What surprises does Pinoy Big Brother's teen edition hold for us?

Catching Up: Not Just Banner Ads Web Wednesdays #1

Image From RD.com

Due to the after-Christmas wave of workload, it's been around three months (or so) since we've last updated our blog.

In any case, I'm more than glad to say: we're back! For those who frequent our blog or for those who've just dropped by, you might often think or wonder what exactly do we do here in this blog. Just a tip, look to your right and read our brief about us snippet or scroll all the way down and read our mission vision.

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Pinoy Big Brother: a successful Filipino online story driving the fans to demand more content not seen on TV

PBB is legendary in the history of Filipino television — it turns nobodies into instant celebrities and endorsers. Thanks to the number of fans and followers who cover the description “die-hard” in its true essence and form. The increasing number of conversations and communities online is quite overwhelming. Number of fan pages on Facebook? Twenty. Number of groups on Facebook? Twenty-eight. Combining all the fans would equal to around 150,000 nationwide. There are so many blogs about the PBB fever and most of the important bits and information about this season is all in its Multiply page. And I haven’t even started about the Twitter buzz it’s getting.

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