The Recycling of Advertising Ideas
The Beer Boys have come together to back Obama! Here is a 2008 rendition of the Budweiser Wassup Campaign from 2000 that is adapted for the Obama presidential campaign. Although I think this idea did outlive its appeal on television sets, to see it resurface in the context of the U.S. election is a delight. This goes to show that good ideas, even those that have gone stale can be reused and adapted for other brands through capitalizing on the relationships that were formed by a legacy brand. In this case, the Obama brand is clearly benefiting from its genius. Enjoy!
Project: Dishez
I have been thinking of creating a social network for global epicureans for a while now and have finally decided to use Ning and the city of London as a starting point. I’m still debating whether or not to modify and scale the social network on Ning, and that largely depends on how popular it gets. Here’s the social network I created to share my culinary adventures in London. http://dishez.ning.com
RESEARCH
This project prompted me to search for suitable white-label social platforms to run my social network on and there are many out there. Jeremiah has maintained a list since 2007 and there are a few new ones that have popped up here and there. I have reviewed about a dozen social platforms today from OneSite, Pluck, PHPizabi, PeopleAggregator, KickApps, Momo, Drupal, Kwiqq, Converdge, and TamTamy to name the main ones.
FEASIBILITY
I am equally glad and humbled by the fact that there are predecessors like menuism.com, friendseat.com and dishola.com out there who have beat me to the chase in terms of initial crowd-sourcing and strategy formulation. This creates contrast and challenges my business case, as I see the need to spend circa 400 hours to develop a social network of any true value.
Since there are already existing dish review and rating sites out there I must think of an even better product that would create more impact and be easier to deploy. My consolation is that Google was a latecomer in the search engine game and was able to triumph over search engines we don’t even remember anymore. The technologist in me says yes but the planner in me is putting down an emphatic “no.” At least not until I have passed my ideas through a feasibility study, analyzed the business side of things and plan this like any other client project.
RESERVATIONS
I am struggling to see when these websites will make real money and whether or not the resources invested into the content strategy formulation and development of these social networks can be justified. A cool idea is just that. If it doesn’t have a clear direction, is a dead-horse that sucks up resources and does not make money, we don’t have a project. The imperative is a business case. Until I have that clearly mapped out I will simply just use original content to fuel interest in testing and reviewing the different white-label social platforms out there.
Do leave me your thoughts.
UPS Widget on Groundswell and Other News
GROUNDSWELL
The UPS widget project that I worked on earlier this year at McCann-Erickson got a mention on Page 34 of Groundswell. Published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008, the much-celebrated book by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff goes into detail about a world that is transformed by social technologies and how you can use them to work to your advantage. I am only on Chapter 5 at the moment but it is definitely coming across as a “must-read.” I found their breakdown of the Social Technographics Profile helpful for online strategy formulation. Traditional audience segmentation unfortunately do not reflect the current participation levels and groups on the Internet and thus are not particularly insightful for the kind of work we do anymore. Forrester Research has the most relevant data and that has been the foundation to the writing of this book by two of their senior analysts. (P.S. Charlene left Forrester recently to start her own consulting company Altimeter Group. Here’s where to grab a copy of Groundswell.
SEESMIC
Johann Romefort, CTO of Seesmic has abandoned Paris for the moment and will now shake his French lovely locks for San Franciscan admirers. Although I did interview him in London, we were interrupted by un chien et une abeille at Kensington Gardens. Although the whole thing was caught on video, I’ll spare myself the embarrassment of being attacked by a buzzing bee mid-interview and show you a picture of triumphant avoiders of the bee-sting!
Johann Romefort and Jackie Miao. London, July 2008
YOUTUBE STARDOM
I’ve been tracking YouTube music stars like Kina Grannis, David Choi, TheBathroomGirl, JillianMarieThomas and SinginDork888, because these folks are really really good! Check out David Choi’s cover of How Deep Is Your Love below. Enjoy the sing-song!
Who?
JACKIE MIAO
Digital Consultant
PRINCE2 Project Manager
Location: London, U.K.-
