Un-sites and Other Lessons from the Frontiers of Marketing

If there’s one thing that has defined marketing for almost the last 100 years and perhaps even more so today, it’s the constant drive to find new ways, new words, new mediums to spark consumers’ imaginations. For daring groundbreakers, that implies huge risks, huge failures, and huge rewards. For everyone else, it means new ideas, new inspiration, and new opportunities.

A few years ago, Advertising Age published its list of the top advertising campaigns of the century. The publication had three criteria for judging a campaign:

• If it was a watershed, discernibly changing the culture of advertising or the popular culture as a whole.
• If it itself was credited with creating a category, or if by its efforts a brand became entrenched in its category as No. 1.
• If it was simply unforgettable.

At the top of the list was Doyle Dane Bernbach’s 1959 “Think Small” Campaign for Volkswagen.

Ad Age wrote this about it:

“First of all, our thanks to Kurt Kroner, the man behind the defining example of the greatest advertising campaign of the century. He wasn’t the copywriter. That was Julian Koenig. Nor was he the art director. That was Helmut Krone. Nor was he elsewhere employed by Doyle Dane Bernbach, the agency that stormed the confining Bastille of advertising orthodoxy to ignite the “creative revolution.”

Actually, our hero wasn’t in advertising at all. Kurt Kroner was the one, among 3,389 Wolfsburg, Germany, assembly plant workers, to flag a blemished chrome strip on the glove compartment of a 1961 Volkswagen Beetle and reject the vehicle for delivery. Yes, if we are to believe Koenig’s copy, Herr Kroner gave us the famously failed and fabulously forlorn. . . “Lemon.”

God bless him, because in so doing he also gave advertising permission to surprise, to defy and to engage the consumer without bludgeoning him about the face and body. Kroner offered up a lemon with approximately the same result of Eve offering the apple. Not only did everything change, but suddenly things were a lot more interesting.”

Suddenly Things are a Lot More Interesting
In following the developing trends in marketing today, it strikes me that we’re at a moment in time, like 1959, when things are about to get a lot more interesting. And that’s exciting.

The explosion of digital mediums. The interactivity of those mediums (touch screens; voice activated commands; hands-free, full-body video control). The cross pollination of technology (using your cell phone to connect to your online presence; your TV to get additional information on material you’re watching in a broadcast…). The social networking rage. The expectation of user engagement. All of these are forming a perfect storm of possibility. Most in the marketing business are still struggling to understand how to use these mediums effectively. What I see most often are still campaigns designed from a very last-century world view – they talk at the consumer rather than with the consumer. There are a few, however, that are paving new ground, and perhaps one will become that groundbreaking campaign that will change everything. Like a great multi-stage bike racer – say Lance Armstrong – (a little plug for my favorite sporting event, the Tour de France as it is the month of July), a savvy brand manager will stay at the front of the marketing peleton (cycling term for big bunch of riders) watching carefully those marketers who break away from the pack, and jumping on the wheel of those mavericks of the race who show the most ability to help you achieve your goal. Or, better yet, know when to leap out in front yourself.

3 New Trends to Stay on Top of

1. Let Others Do the Talking About You

A new genre of websites, or rather, un-sites as blogger David Griner calls them in his blog “Web 3.0 is About Taming the Deluge of Data” are tapping into social network and Web content streams to promote their brands.

The upside: it’s fresh, updated frequently, honest, and less of a workload for you.

The downside: it’s unpredictable, uncontrollable…and honest. If you’re willing to risk the downsides, the upsides could reap rewards. How much, hard to tell yet.

Some examples of these types of sites:

• Skittles, which uses people’s references to its brand on their Twitter feeds; comments on their facebook page; and flickr and YouTube posts as the company’s website.

• The ad agency Modernista! which literally uses the Web as its website. When you type Modernista! into Google or you type in modernista.com you get a Google search page and several small red bars along the top of the page. One is the site navigation (you can drag and place it anywhere on the page you like) and the other is a notice that says the following:

“Do not be alarmed. You are viewing Modernista! through the eyes of the Web.

The menu on the left is our homepage. The blog is ours. Everything else is beyond our control.”

2. Brand Minimalism

Another type of un-site is the kind that takes the brand to where Web users hang out rather than making them come to it. For example, the agency BooneOakley’s site exists only on YouTube.

When you go to BooneOakley.com, it directs you to the company’s YouTube page where you can watch this video

The upside: it’s unexpected, invites user engagement, has a built in feedback mechanism, uses a video interface, is concise, should be simple.

The downside: it’s concise, perhaps too simple, feedback is open for all to see.

3. The Challenge

Probably nothing gets people more intrigued than if you challenge them to figure something out. In a perfect marriage of product, medium, and message, Samsung’s latest campaign for its new phones with high definition cameras is a poster child for how to do this right. The campaign, created by the Viral Factory in London, challenges viewers to figure out how the phone appears and disappears in the ad when the entire spot was shot in real time, on the camera phone, with no editing. The genius here is the chatter that it created simply by people trying to guess the trick. Samsung then came back and posted a “How we did it” piece, which had people coming back to their site/product to see the reveal.

The upside: it’s intriguing, highly engaging, it fits the medium beautifully, is a great example of something that feels self-made but was professionally crafted, promotes chatter, brings people back for more, gets multiple views as people are trying to figure out how the trick is done, and the metrics are easy to track. Not only are the views tracked by YouTube (over a million so far), but marketers were able to track how many times individual visitors viewed the piece, how long they watched it for, and whether they spent time replaying pieces of it.

The downside: hard to see a downside to this one, other that some of the random lude comments some people made. In general, I’d say this is an idea to jump on when you can.

Initial Spot

Camera Trick Revealed

For All You Strategists Out There: Communicating Strategy to a Designer

When I first began working at EMG in 2004, I will admit that I didn’t completely understand how solid strategy and creative design worked together. I had no idea how important that idea really was in the whole scheme of a successful brand. Why would you need a “separate brain” to think about strategy? Doesn’t that just come naturally along with the design? Well, no, not really.

To me, a successful strategy means conducting some really deep-thinking sessions. It’s ultimately about knowing who you are. Some designers are also great strategists and some strategists are fantastic designers. As someone who’s more into the strategy piece than the creative (though I try to enter the creative world from time to time), please allow me sum up what I’ve learned in a little over four years’ time: you have to let designers do there thing, but with some strategy laced into it.

That may or may not strike a cord with the strategists when it comes to explaining a certain strategy you’d like to see brought out in a design. Whether it’s a certain way of cropping images, or the making sure that certain design elements are used in ways that can translate to multiple mediums, it’s important.

For those who are big time strategists who are typically thinking hard and long about strategy, it is best to often repeat “I am not the designer!” There’s certainly a grey line between a lot of aspects and that’s when working together becomes so important.

Avoiding stepping on each others feet can be challenging and it’s advantageous to have a long-standing, working relationship with designers. When you’ve worked with each other before and can almost read what the other is thinking, it makes this process much easier, and most times fun.

But, as is in most cases…, what if you don’t have this close strategy-designer relationship? Well, for one, just have patience. Secondly, you’ve got to be a good listener. Really understanding where they’re coming from goes a long way. It can help immensely to be sure you’re familiar with a lot of their previous work. Lastly, stay optimistic! It’s a lot easier to see each other’s points of view when you’re expecting a positive outcome. These tips will definitely help the strategists out there work closely with the designers out there.

So do any strategists or designers out there have any stories, good or bad, about the challenges and/or rewards of working together?

The Black Hole in College/University Marketing Operations

In the scramble to get on the social media train, the stress of belt tightening, the onslaught of information – both generated and received – many of us probably haven’t noticed that we’re being sucked ever more quickly into a huge and growing black hole…

…one that feeds on the huge volume of information – think data here – we’re generating and receiving and offers no means to manage or make that data useful…

Missed Opportunities
What this black hole situation adds up to is huge missed opportunities to leverage that data to advance institutional goals; hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of staff time wasted in generating and capturing data that goes nowhere; and a situation that will overwhelm us in the near future if things don’t change.

Smart Computers
Here’s the good news. You are not alone in this scenario. As individuals and organizations, we’re all struggling with this phenomenon. It’s what Web 3.0 is all about; and it’s just over the horizon…smart computers that not only help manage data, but actually learn how you use data and adapt to those uses in search, in social networking, etc. It’s certainly what we dream of, but can it be a reality? Most experts believe we’re headed there pretty quickly. The secret to Web 3.0 lies not only in new coding languages that help programs to actually understand the content of Web pages, not simply search for words that you’ve typed in, but also in applications (APIs) that request services/data from other applications or libraries or databases.

Growing Application Presence
If you use Facebook, you’ve seen a lot of these APIs at work. Anytime you add an application to your FB page, you get a message from it to allow access to your profile information. It’s pulling that data and using it to communicate your actions on that application to your friends – i.e. “John Smith took the How Mean Are You? quiz and got a 78%” Other API applications like Tweetdeck and Tweetlater for you Twitter users, help manage multiple Twitter accounts. Mashups are perhaps the best use of APIs. They run from the useful like PackageTrack and Trackle. In the images below you can see all the services from which the applications are aggregating information.

To the more obscure like nukeometer, which will tell you how many nuclear warheads are close to where you live.

For an in-depth look at Web 3.0 read John Strickland’s blog “How Web 3.0 Will Work”. Otherwise, David Briner’s blog Taming the River of Data offers a nice quick overview.

Getting Out of the Black Hole
So I’ve thrown the concept of smart computers, Web 3.0, and APIs at you. But what’s my point?

It’s that the future of the Web is a much more exciting, dynamic place in which information is used and reused and managed in smarter, more effective ways. What that implies is that application developers will become as important as writers and designers in marketing shops. Yes, I said marketing shops, not IT departments.

Furthermore, you should begin anticipating subscription costs to important applications that may be beyond the scope of your in-house development team. While many applications are free for use, there are a growing number that are beginning to require annual fees to access the more sophisticated aspects of their services.

And finally, keep in mind these three key elements to successful marketing communications in a Web 3.0 world:

• Close integration of brand message; design; and use of information to communicate with individuals rather than masses. This means a tight-knit collaboration between writer, designer, and application developer.
• A creative approach to reaching audiences. Stay tuned for my blog on Un-sites and other tactics that are re-creating digital communications.
• The ability to capitalize on opportunities by acting quickly to create the necessary communications/applications that will reach and engage your target audiences.

The International Brand Master 2009

This year’s International Brand Master is Andrew Careaga.

The intensive selection process included completing a nomination form with stringent background criteria, an online open voting process by professional colleagues worldwide, and a thorough review of the finalists’ credentials and work product by seven experienced higher education marketing judges.

Andrew was chosen for many reasons, including

• His work in the marketing challenge of renaming the University of Missouri-Rolla to Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the relatively quick time in which it was done
• His strategy and accomplishments in rebranding of the university as a top national technological university
• His strategic and effective utilization of new media including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, http://namechange.mst.edu/
• His clear and distinct branding strategy, messaging, and imagery used in branding and marketing the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Another factor that caught the judges’ attention during the review process was that Andrew had the largest diversity of higher education marketers voting for him as their choice for the Brand Master award.  Each finalist was given a short period of time to revise the statement that their nominee provided for them when they were notified of their finalist status. These statements were then placed on the EMG website for appraisal by professional colleagues.  Here is a reprise of Andrew’s statement:

Over the past two-plus years, Andrew has led a campuswide rebranding effort as the campus formerly known as the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) became Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). The name change was a substantial rebranding that occurred in a very short time frame (at least by higher ed standards). As part of the rebranding, Andrew and the entire communications team embraced social media to address controversies surrounding the name change (through the “name change conversations” blog http://namechange.mst.edu) and to relaunch the university as one that is truly among the nation’s distinctive technological universities. Missouri S&T was one of the first to embrace micro-blogging site Twitter, setting up its account (http://twitter.com/MissouriSandT) in December 2007. This led to social media higher ed consultant to label Andy “the Nostradamus of Higher Ed Twitter” in a March 2009 blog post (http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2009/03/27/twitter-higher-ed/).

As part of the International Brand Master Award, Andrew has been invited to participate  as a special faculty member at the 2009 Brand Manager’s Summit.  During the conference, he’ll discuss his new media and branding strategies and tactics at Missouri S&T.

“With the rise and influence of social media, communicators have more ways to get our message across than ever before,” Andrew says. “But it’s important to remember that social media is a two-way street, and we need to listen to stakeholders as much as we talk to them – if not more so.”

Andy’s work demonstrated to the review team his outstanding leadership skill, the ability to  effectivelyaddress emerging challenges, and a strong understanding of marketing and public relations in higher education. Read more about his knowledge of higher education branding at his blog http://highered.prblogs.org/.

Not only this, he is also left handed, but he can play the guitar right handed and he used to have a a 1964 Dodge Dart, metallic sky blue, with a straight-six motor and push-button transition (a note from the blog poll on the right). Find out more fun facts about Andrew at http://highered.prblogs.org/100-things-about-me/.

The runner-up, Jenny Beckman-Wong from RMIT University in Australia put up an impressive showing with a strong brand, excellent new media usage, and a data-rich presentation.  Catherine “Punky” Scruggs from Strayer University had a strong public vote and comprehensive and robust brand.  We congratulate both of these finalists for their outstanding work and professionalism.

We enjoyed learning about each of the three finalists and we hope to see all of the participants at the Brand Manager’s Summit so we can all acknowledge their professional accomplishments.

Breaking Your Brand Family’s Back

The intense cost of supporting multiple sub-brands and independent brands came up during last week’s Online KnowledgeBuilder on brand architecture. I thought it was worth a little more discussion.

Our KnowledgeBuilder discussion reinforced that, in most cases, little thought is given to marketing costs when the heads of various units – deans, chairs, directors, vice presidents, etc. – get a wild hair that they want their own brand identity. For some obscure reason, unit directors are convinced that having their own logo and creative identity will somehow make their units more successful. Maybe it’s ego, too.

But rare is the unit director who gives serious consideration to what it will take to actually support their sub-brand or independent identity.

It’s more than just the cost of creative development, although that can be significant on its own. It also involves printing costs; signage; costs for website, microsite, and social networking presence and maintenance; ongoing PR and internal communications; events marketing; and an adequate advertising budget. How about staffing for developing the materials, writing a separate marketing plan, and implementing integrated tactics?

We’ve estimated that each sub-brand you create will cost your institution at a minimum, an additional 65% to 85% of the core marketing budget in order to adequately support it. For example, if you’re investing $1 million annually (including salaries, operating expense, PR, marketing, advertising, and promotions) on the core brand, then each sub-branded unit should be budgeting between $650,000 and $850,000 in annual marketing and communications investment.

Each independent brand will cost your institution even more – between 75% and 100% as much as the core brand marketing budget. (It’s never a good idea to have a sub-brand invest more in marketing than the core brand over an extended period of time, since the risk is that the sub-brand will eventually gain greater equity than the core brand – a calamity.)

For institutions devoted to the public good, and particularly in this difficult economy, such additional marketing requirements can appear extravagant to the point of wasteful.

Regardless, the projected costs for marketing support of sub-brands and independent brands needs to be at the forefront of any discussions about creating unit-based identities. It should be one of the basic criteria for whether or not to create such an identity, and it’s one of the big reasons that we caution brand managers that senior leadership must assume authority and responsibility for approving the institution’s brand architecture.

I invite your further thoughts on this issue, and thanks to all the participants in last week’s KnowledgeBuilder on brand architecture

A Sign of the Times

First a quick reminder. The preferred registration for the Brand Manager’s Summit ends today. This is a 50% tuition discount to the best limited attendance, network, interactive event with speakers from Google and Verizon. Click here for more information.

With the economy still not doing so hot. It seems like many companies out there are competing harder then ever to get more and keep more customers buying their products/services. They realize that sometimes you have to spend money to make money and hope for healthy returns on the investment. They also do it so you, the consumer, feel they are relating to the hardships that you are going through. And lastly they do it to upstage their competitors and beat them to the punch.

Recently there has been uptick of high profile promotions. And since we all like food, here are a bunch of food promotion examples. Like the Denny’s Superbowl ad that gave a free Grand Slam breakfast to patrons on a certain day. They received a huge outcome. Also, there was the Oprah/KFC meal giveaway. Even though this one was promotion was a bit rough around the edges, Oprah spent more money on the KFC giveaway than on her free-car-to-all-audience-members show. She also said she got more thank you notes from the KFC promotion too.

Just a couple months ago, Mars released a press statement on their website regarding the “The Real Chocolate Relief Act”. Mars plans to give away around 7 million free full-size candy bars between now and September. According to a New York Times article, Frito-Lay also joined on the bandwagon at the beginning of the summer with the banner at the top of many of their Cheeto, Fritos, and Tostitos bag saying “”Hey! There’s 20% more free fun to share in here.” Also, according to the same New York Times article, back in May “French’s condiments, promoting(ed) larger packages to be sold at lower prices. For instance, a 20-ounce bottle of French’s Classic Yellow mustard will cost less than a 14-ounce bottle.”

Kraft Singles also came up with a clever all-American type of promotion. Bring in a Singles wrapper to

any Minor League Baseball game and get a buy-one-get-one-free deal to a Tuesday night game.

It also seemed like the annual free food days got a little more play this year. 7-Eleven always celebrates July 11 or 7/11 by giving out free Slurpees. Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry’s gave away free ice cream on their respective Free Flavors Day and Free Cone Day.

The New York Times article has a great quote that sums up all the reasons these companies are doing these promotions “The consumer is telling you something: ‘I want to see value. I want you to demonstrate value,’”

In higher ed, colleges and universities are heavily competing for the surge of students going back to school during the tough economic times.  The exact tactics above won’t probably work, but the lesson does. The question then becomes, what can higher education afford to give away for free to give prospective students a taste of your campus and to show off the value of the school. Yes, I said giveaway something for free. Is there something substantial enough to show the value of the education that prospective students can receive. Remember, the examples above are giving away $10 tickets and $4 ice cream cones. What can higher education giveaway for free to illustrate the value of a $10,000 school year? Especially when the value of a higher education is being questioned in articles and features like this New York Times Room for Debate and this Huffington Post article.

Campus Tours Could Soon Be A Little Different

Read this short post on intelligent object recognition on Mashable (then come back!). If you work at a college or university, specifically in Admissions, you had to be thinking “campus tour!” immediately after reading that. We all know the campus tour is designed for the prospective student to get a “feel” for the campus, and that’s of the utmost importance for sure, but being able to learn a little extra here and there along the way through the use of technology would be a huge plus. Not to mention giving off the impression of being quite tech savvy to potential incoming freshmen.

Imagine a student walking up to your basketball arena and seeing its seating capacity, when it was built, or when the next event being held there is – instantly. Students walking up to the library and seeing statistics on total books on hand, hours its open, or even real-time information like how many computers are currently available in the computer lab. The technology and potential is simply awesome. Maybe at the beginning of each tour session you hand everyone an iPod Touch or an iPhone, if they don’t already have one. Everyone is connected via your on-campus Wi-Fi network. And if the information really comes from Wikipedia, as is speculated in the article, you’ll certainly need to be sure that it’s accurate! Of course, in the example of finding out the number of open computers in the lab, gathering real-time information from Wikipedia isn’t going to work, but who knows what kind of integration ability with other systems will be available when this finally appears. Now I feel like I’m entering the year 2020 here… but it gets better.

Apple has already filed a patent for this, but I’ve seen a somewhat related and a more advanced technology in video games. Specifically, in augmented reality games. My friend sent me the below video courtesy of Georgia Tech and SCAD-Atlanta, where you play a game on your touch-screen enabled device, yet physically, you’re revolving around a map on a table. It gets even better, as you’ll see about 2 minutes into the video, when the gamer starts blowing up real Skittles in the game.

I can’t really see a way (yet) to use that crazy technology to help your college or university in the recruiting process, unless of course your Georgia Tech who’s helping to develop it, then you can promote the heck out of it! The idea I really wanted to get across in this post is not just that technology is always changing (that’s a give in), but that it might just be far more advanced than you think it is. I know when I first watched the video above I was absolutely blown away and would have never thought that to be doable. So keep your eyes peeled for the latest and greatest, because you just might be able to utilize it on your campus sooner than you expect.

The idea I really wanted to get across in this post is not just that technology is always changing (that’s a given), but that it might just be far more advanced than you think it is. I know when I first watched the video above I was absolutely blown away and would have never thought that to be doable. So keep your eyes peeled for the latest and greatest, because you just might be able to utilize it on your campus sooner than you expect. Look! I already found more augmented reality goodness in an Advertising Age article: Your phone is a mouse.

Brand Architecture: Who’s Really In Charge?

Last week a reader responded by email to a recent post on brand architecture, taking issue with one of my assertions.  Her point of contention concerned who should determine how various units are positioned – as elements of the core brand, as sub-brands, or as independent brands.  I wrote:

“When you don’t have a strong brand architecture in place, we’ve seen such decisions being made – by default – by the communications manager or publications director or even a designer! Little wonder these brands fall apart at the seams.”

The reader felt this was unfair and inaccurate, and responded:

“I think I understand that you are appealing to institutions without a strong brand when you say this. But my experience shows me – that in many colleges and universities – the communications manager, publications director or designer is EXPECTED to be the expert on brand development and management.  The senior leadership delegates to these professional[s]. And it becomes important for these folks to BECOME experts in branding. I, for instance, have been encouraged to understand market data and analysis.   These people (like me) are your audience. Don’t diss them.  Maybe you can hook senior management this way at some institutions – but not at all.  A little more respect-”

I was actually referring to institutions that have already developed a strong brand platform and seek to determine how they should position various high-profile divisions, campuses, colleges, schools, and centers.  But it’s a excellent discussion point, well made, and my thanks to this colleague for bringing it up.

Yet I stand by my assertion that decisions on brand architecture need to be made by senior leadership.  I have two compelling reasons:

1. Positioning decisions go far beyond marketing.  They impact the fundamental mission of both the core brand and the related units, with implications for academic operations, program selection, delivery methods, resource allocations, fundraising, target audiences, staffing, and a host of other management factors.  Marketing issues need to be part of the positioning decision – the marketing staff should give senior leaders well-researched recommendations regarding how units should be positioned – but marketing is only one aspect of these far-reaching decisions, and it’s a mistake to allow marketing be the sole determinant.
2. It can be career-limiting for marketing staff to make unilateral decisions on brand architecture.  Deans and other unit leaders are typically fervent on how their units are positioned, and rightly so, since such decisions impact the health and well-being of their units.  When marketing staff make the call on their own, they often find themselves going toe-to-toe with a dean and/or vice president.  For example, when the marketing team “grants” sub-brand status to a campus, college, or school, it’s akin to opening Pandora’s Box with other deans wanting the same treatment.  It’s politically dangerous for the marketing staff to deny powerful campus leaders.  While senior administrators have both the pay grade and the broad management experience needed to make – and defend – such decisions, marketing staff usually don’t. 

We have incredible respect and admiration for higher ed marketers and brand managers and what they do – after all, that’s what we do, too.  And we agree that marketing experts need to have significant input in the process – in fact, we recommend that the brand manager take the lead role in proposing a comprehensive brand architecture matrix for the entire institution, and then present the rationale to the senior leadership team for discussion, debate, and approval.

But institutional leaders have to own the decisions regarding which units will be part of the core brand, which will be accorded sub-brand status, and which will operate as independent brands.  In order to ensure sustainability and acceptance of the brand architecture, they have to assume sole authority and responsibility for these decisions.  Then they can delegate brand development and management to the marketing experts. 

This is a great debating point, and I hope this reader and other colleagues will join the Online KnowledgeBuilder on brand architecture this Thursday (July 16) at 11:00 MDT for in-depth discussion of this issue and others related to brand architecture.   Look forward to more great discussion!

The Winds are Blowing… and Advertising that Makes me go Hhmmm…

The winds are blowing as we are getting close to a milestone for the Summit, the Brand Manager’s Summit that is. Preferred registration tuition of $495 ends July 15 (50% off regular tuition). And this  year’s Summit “New Media or Die!” promises to be a not-to-miss event for higher ed marketers. We will have Kate Keene, Associate Marketing Manager, Education, Google, Inc. and John “CZ” Czwartacki, Executive Director of External Communications, Verizon to go over “5 Rules of Engagement for Higher Education Marketers” and “A Glimpse at Verizon“.  Everyone knows the awesome power of Google on the internet and Verizon was listed as one of the top 100 social brand in 2008.

It’s the year’s greatest opportunity for educational marketing and communications pros to learn state of the art brand-marketing strategies and tactics and to network with colleagues from around the country.  Opportunities to talk marketing and new media with outside experts, like Kate and John, is one of the most valued aspects of the Summit!  They’ll pass on the strategies and tactics that work and don’t work.

We will also have the International Brand Master 2009 on hand to discuss their successes, challenges, and strategies. Voting is over and the Brand Master will be announced soon.

To add more excitement to the two and half days, we included the Brand Challenge – a hands-on team competition allowing you to apply what you learn in a real-world setting, while providing valuable assistance to a worthy non-profit agency! Each team’s assignment will be to create an innovative new media campaign that achieves a non-profit agency’s marketing goals using the tools and skills discussed at the conference.

Register now for the limited attendance event of the year.  Preferred registration of $495 ends July 15 (that is more than 50% off regular tuition). Register now! There is also a fun chance to win a scholarship in the Brand Bounce newsletter sent around July 8. If you didn’t get it, sign up for it and it will be sent to you.

With that out of my system, I move on to Advertising that Makes You go Hhmmm…. I recently traveled to Washington D.C. and St. Louis and saw several things that caught my eye and that I thought I would share with everyone.

First in D.C. I saw an ad in the Metro for the Center for Disease Control. I can’t find it online, but it is a picture of a family being covered by a protective umbrella with the names of common illnesses falling like rain. The family under the umbrella is, of course, protected from the falling rain of illnesses. The headline read something like “the CDC has you and your family covered.” It was a nice advertisement. I just found it interesting the CDC felts it necessary to spend advertising money on emotional advertising like this and in the Metro of all places. Why not spend more on flu preventive hygiene and other protective measures.  It was one of things that left a weird feeling with me.

Also on the D.C. Metro, I finally had a chance to see something I have only read about.  It was a moving ad within the Metro tunnel. I glanced up and saw only a portion of it and can’t even remember what it was for.  But here is an example I found on YouTube. This example is from the New York City subway.

The last “hhhmmmm” advertising was in St. Louis. It was a billboard, again I can’t find a picture online. But I did get the website. It was for Don’t Move the Firewood. The message is great – don’t move around firewood cause it could carry and spread tree-harming beetles. A problem Colorado is all too familiar with. The thing that made me go hmmmm was the placement of the billboard itself. It was in the middle of the suburban St. Louis. Unless it was a value add for the organization. I may not be the only one, but picking up firewood isn’t that top-of-mind for me driving through a suburb.

Again, none of the advertising itself was bad. Just had something about it that made me go hmmmm and that I thought was interesting enough to share.

Get More Face Time on Facebook

On the heels of Travis’ recent post Get Engaged!, I started looking more closely at Facebook’s (FB) rapidly evolving advertising strategy. The two major spaces the company is focusing on are a beefed up ad presence on its coveted FB Home Page and on email pages.

For me, the jury is still out as to whether an increasing ad presence will hurt or help FB in the long run.

As a user, I’m not that thrilled – except when the advertising is fun and creative, then, I personally don’t mind it. And it’s presence on the sidebar means I can tune it out pretty easily.

However, as a marketer, I can’t (and I’ll tell you that you can’t) pass up the opportunity to use FB’s new offerings to advertisers to help build connections with your target audiences. I’d tell you, you shouldn’t rely solely on this space, but it definitely should be one of your mediums in a well integrated campaign to gen Y and gen X audiences. See the blog Facebook Experimenting with Video Poll Home Page Engagement Ad Unit.

The numbers make a pretty compelling argument to be in this space. According to FB’s Manager of Brand Market Solutions, Trista Handisides, the Facebook home page is the “most engaging page on the Internet” – with nearly 6 billion monthly minutes spent, compared to 3 billion minutes for Yahoo, 1.86 billion for MSN, and 700 million for MySpace. (check out her comments at the Facebook Marketing Breakfast).

Particularly intriguing to me, are the possibilities to incorporate video into ads. In a move that’s very on FB brand, the videos are combined with polls that ask something of users, as an engagement mechanism. These aren’t hugely widespread yet, but I suspect we’ll see a growing number. I know they certainly catch my eye more. To get an idea, look for the current Lexus campaign. It’s a nice combination of a TV driven campaign that is intriguing enough to give it a viral quality on the Web, i.e. by using the polls on FB to ask audiences what they believe is happening in the commercial. Answering the poll takes you to Lexus’ FB page, where you can learn more about the product, see the other ads, and, of course, read what others are saying about the campaign.

What a great opportunity for higher ed marketers to get creative. Taking the big picture view, you could go the Lexus route by using TV combined with other tools, including FB. However, you’d have to have a good question to pay it off. For example, our client, the University of Southern Maine is currently running a TV campaign with the theme “That’s Education My Way, this would marry nicely with a FB video/engagement spot that invites the user to choose what “Education Their Way” would look like and lead them to a University prospective student page that would further the conversation. You heard it here first USM!

Other opportunities on FB include using banner ads like the flash ad for Best Buy on the left. These appear mostly on your email home page.

You’ll also see polls included with intriguing still images.

The ads I’ve been discussing are all negotiated through FB’s advertising unit. If you’re doing these kinds of ads, it’s a good idea, to work with an agency as it will know the ins and outs of negotiating in this space and can give you some pointers on how to get the most out of this investment.

The ads you see most often, consisting of a headline, image, and a brief sell line below, are the kind you can create yourself right on FB. They come at a set price for view and performance. These are a great way to get started and, for the price, a good medium to incorporate into your ad buys aimed at younger audiences. But, if you can, step it up. It will pay off in terms of building engagement equity for you brand. The added bonus is that FB’s great metrics allow you to measure results in real time. But that’s a blog for another time…

On a side note… three finalist for the International Brand Master have been chosen: Andrew Careaga, Catherine Scruggs, and Jenny Beckman-Wong (in no particular order).  Now the voting is in your hands! Read about the top three nominees and their accomplishments in higher education below and vote for which person you think exemplifies their profession. Don’t take the voting lightly as the 2009 International Brand Master will be asked to speak of their challenges and successes at the Brand Manager’s Summit in October of 2009. Vote by Wednesday July 8 (click here).