1) Think mobile. Already, it is reported that more than 40% of smart phone owners have made a purchase by using their smart phone. In fact, about half of them made the purchase while in the store. The mobile phenomenon is just getting bigger. By 2014, it is predicted more people will access the Internet via smart phones and tablets than with all other computers combined. So if your web site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’ll miss a lot of web traffic.

Use 2012 to shore up your mobile interface. Optimize for the 4-inch screen. Make the experience rewarding for your visitors. Don’t make them scroll or endlessly click to open more pages. Forget Flash. Make your site clean, readable and well-organized.

2) Get serious about online video. Be honest. Would you rather plod through a bunch of IKEA assembly instructions, or watch a video of someone putting the piece together? It is this preference that has propelled YouTube into being the #2 search engine in the world (and the #3 most-visited site). People aren’t just going there for cat videos anymore. With more than 40 hours of video being uploaded EVERY MINUTE, there’s a staggering array of all types of content hosted on YouTube. Internet viewing is up over 35% this year (with mobile viewing up even more). The average American web user spends 7 hours a month on YouTube (stats from Pixability). Videos with key word-rich titles and descriptions work wonders with getting you found on Google and other search engines. And—going back to resolution #1—YouTube is already optimized for mobile, so your videos are available to a much wider market.

3) Plan ahead for the Election season from hell. This year, with the Citizen’s United ruling in the books, money will be pouring into political campaigns like never before. And probably 99.99% of it is going to be spent in the same mass media (TV primarily) that you’re planning to use to reach YOUR audience.

Chances are, Q-4 air time is going to be a scarce commodity. Darned expensive, too. So make 2012 the year to think tactically. Traditionally, it is thought you must make 12 mass media impressions on a subject to incite action. Challenge yourself to cut that number in half. Create edgier commercials. Reach your audience in unexpected ways. Make sure your online efforts complement what you are doing offline. Make sure the communications all grow from the same “brand narrative.” Speaking of which…

4) Integrate, integrate, integrate. Sounds obvious. Yet recent studies show only about 17% of businesses feel they do an “adequate” job of integrating their social media into their overall marketing mix (source: eMarketer.com). Understand how you can best use the platforms available to you. Don’t slide into the habit of “dumping” content on as many social media pages as you can. Have a content strategy for each platform, and stick to it.

5) Focus on what works. The last few years have been more than a little overwhelming when it comes to new opportunities in the way of engagement platforms (Google+ is but one of the latest examples). It’s easy to get the feeling that if you’re not on board with the latest and greatest, you’re falling behind.

In 2012, take a trip up to the 10,000 foot level and decide what’s really working for you. Forget the pundits. What works for YOU? Find the platforms that produce, and stick to them. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but also, be careful not to spread yourself too thin. If you’re going to invest your time and resources into a platform, do it right. Then make sure it delivers.

So go ahead, pick a resolution. And revisit it every month or so just to see how you’re doing. And with a little planning, you can count on a killer 2012.

Happy Holidays one and all, and thanks for reading in 2011!

Posted by Mickey

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As you may recall, Pepsi was one of the first big-name marketers to aggressively go “all-in” in a Social Media sense, with its much talked-about “Pepsi Refresh Project.” This was a commitment from Pepsi to support worthwhile causes recommended and voted on by its customers and fans. Pepsi used Social Media (primarily Facebook) to elicit suggestions, to “crowd source” the causes (have fans and friends vote on them), and to report news developments.

What gathered a lot of media attention for Pepsi wasn’t so much the program itself, but the fact that Pepsi was pulling back in its traditional media spending in order to fund this program. As it turns out, the brand really didn’t need to cut back much, just the couple of spots it traditionally ran in the Super Bowl.

In the year following “Pepsi Refresh,” Pepsi’s flagship product slipped into third place in the soft drink category (behind Diet Coke). Many Social Media naysayers were quick to blame this slide on Pepsi’s move from mass media to Social Media. While I, for one, don’t think Pepsi’s descent in the cola wars was due to the fact that it didn’t run a couple of Super Bowl spots (more on that in this post), I do think the marketer dropped the ball when it came to defining and managing the “Pepsi Refresh” program. Specifically, I take Pepsi to task for three key reasons:

1. The focus was more on the “crowd sourcing” part of the program than in the good works themselves. Pepsi seemed to be more interested in social media for social media’s sake rather than dedicated to a specific cause and serving as a catalyst for building a community of fans who also supported it. Social Media is most effective when it is used to amplify a strategy, not become one.
2. The program didn’t have a clear mission. Instead of focusing on a clear, single goal (for example, fresh drinking water in third-world countries), suggestions from fans were all over the map. Many were geographically limited, so the Pepsi community as a whole would not benefit or see the results. If you’re going to start a movement (which is what Social Media at its best is capable of doing), you need to have a clear, succinct, non-compromising vision of what it is you will do and how specifically your audience can contribute and participate.
3. The program didn’t treat all community members fairly. The more active you were in Social Media, the more influence you had over the process. There were charges, in fact, of cheating on the part of some charitable entities in order to extort funds from Pepsi. This is not the kind of PR you want.

Contrast what Pepsi did more than a year ago to what Coke is doing now. Coke has teamed with the World Wildlife Fund to help preserve the habitat of the Arctic Polar Bear. Promoted by both mass media and Social Media, this program spells out exactly what the marketer intends to do (donate up to $2 million for Arctic habitat preservation over five years) and how the Coke community can help support (purchase cans and bottle of Coke with the polar bears on it). Simple. Elegant. Easy to understand. Easy to take part in. A cause that is hard to say “no” to. By partnering with WWF, Coke also aligned itself with a an organization which is beyond reproach, giving the program more legitimacy. What’s more, when you see someone drinking a Coke from a polar bear can, you immediately identify him as a fellow Arctic preservationist.

Of course, I do have some issues with this campaign as well. An annual donation of just $500,000 for an organization that has annual sales in the billions is less than a drop in the bucket. Chances are, Coke is spending at least 20 times that amount in paid media promoting this campaign alone. Hey Coke. Don’t be so chintzy. Increase your contributions ten fold.

In case you haven’t seen it, here is the spot Coke is running promoting its Save the Arctic efforts:

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Brian and many others who silently think along these same lines use undocumented generalities, personal anecdotes and a form of tortured logic to back up their theses.

They really owe it to themselves and their readers to take the time to review the research that’s been done to quantify effectiveness of mass media advertising. For example, in his article, Brian supports his claim that television advertising is no longer effective because, “…a lot of (DVR) customers fast forward through your expensive commercial.” Knowing that 44% of homes now have a DVR present, it’s easy to imagine Brian’s on to something when he portrays TV as a dying ad medium. Unfortunately, the facts don’t back him up. Recent studies by Nielsen, for example, show that 90% of TV viewing is still done live, and fewer than 1/2 (44%) of DVR users ever fast forward through commercials. Furthermore, whatever viewers have been lost via DVR and online views have been more than made up for by the fact that real-time TV viewership is UP 7% year/year.

Brian goes after other traditional forms of advertising too, and the facts don’t help him there, either. Radio listenership is impressively up. And while Direct Mail response has always been low, for most advertisers, response rates in the expected 1 – 2% range are the norm.

Overall, ad recall scores across all mass media are basically unchanged over 20 years.

But the new media types’ broadest generalization about advertising (that no one pays enough attention to it to remember it) was shot down by research done last year by Melanie Dempsey (Ryerson University) and Andrew A. Mitchell (University of Toronto). In essence, their study found that even when the consumer was unable to recall brand claims or even the brand name itself from advertising, he/she could very well been left with a subconscious positive feeling about the brand or product. One which he or she may not even be aware of, that often manifests itself in the form of product purchase. When Dempsey’s and Mitchell’s subjects were asked why they purchased brands they were unknowingly exposed to via advertising, the general response was “I like it, but can’t tell you why.” Follow this link to a summary of Dempsey’s and Mitchell’s study.

I’m sure the intentions of Brian and the multitude of others out there sounding the death knell of mass media advertising are pure. I don’t think they have an axe to grind. I think they truly believe that the Brave New World of Social Media is THE place to build a brand at the current time. If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ve no doubt figured out that I, too, am a fan of Social Media. Not to build a brand, but to amplify your strategy. To touch your customers where they spend their time. Where you can hear what they are saying and contribute to them in real time.

But trying to build a brand with Social Media without the reach and emotional appeals of mass media? That would be like trying to boil water with a flashlight.

It’s great that writers like Brian are willing to stir up a little controversy by “poking the snake.” But it would be nice if they did their critically-thinking readers a favor and relied on more than what they hear in the Social Media echo chamber.

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Once upon a time, naming your competition was pretty simple. Your competitors were the businesses in your market area that sold the same sort of products or services as you. But thanks to the Internet (more specifically Google), all that’s changed.

Now your competition isn’t so much who you say it is. It’s who Google says it is.

When your key word search terms are entered, who shows up? Is it the “usual suspects” you’ve been going toe-to-toe with for quite some time? Or are there new “competitors” (online or offline) that show up in the search?

Whichever is the case, before you can figure out how to take on your competition, you first have to know who they are.

For the sake of simplicity, here are four different types of competitors it pays to consider:

1. Brick-and-Mortar Competition
These are the competitors you have a pretty good handle on. They’re the ones you compete with on a fairly regular basis. If you’re Staples, your brick-and-mortar competitors are mom-and-pop stationery stores, as well as chains such as OfficeMax and OfficeDepot. Chances are you know these guys pretty well, and you’ve gotten quite adept at competing head-to-head.

2. Competition That Ranks For Your Keywords
Thanks to the Internet, it’s not just local companies you need to worry about. You also have to be aware of your search competitors – the businesses that are stealing customers by ranking for the keywords you want to be found for. The Internet doesn’t care if Jenny’s Book Emporium is run out of her parent’s basement in Nogales, AZ. If Jenny’s ranking higher on the page for your search terms than you are, tough luck. There’s a pretty good shot she’s going to steal some business that under other circumstances would likely come your way.

Let’s go back to our Staples example.

If you’re Staples and you want to rank for “hanging file folders,” your competition isn’t just the brick and mortar guys. You’re also up against Amazon, The Container Store, Walmart, Sam’s Club and who-knows-else. There doesn’t need to be a physical location within 200 miles of your storefront. If their website is showing up above yours (or comparable to yours) in the search results, they’re a direct competitor.

3. Competitors Whose Social Media Pages Rank For Your Keywords
Like most organizations, you’ve probably got a website. You might even have a Facebook page. Maybe even a LinkedIn business page. But what about the competitors who are seemingly everywhere in Social Media? They blog, they contribute to industry forums, they comment on articles. They post videos on YouTube and photos on Picasa. Keep in mind that Google indexes each and every one of these pages. And the more dynamic the content (the more frequently it is updated), the higher it will generally rank, usually against the very words you’re hoping to be found with.

This is a whole new category of “search competitor”: those who get in through the side door while everyone is trying to push through the front. This is a big reason why it’s so important to have a meaningful presence in as many social platforms as you can manage, and why all digital assets related to your brand need to be optimized for search.

4. “Share of Buzz” Competitors
Thanks to social media, there’s another class of nagging competitor to think about – the ones who are winning in the “Share of Voice” battle. These are the businesses that sell similar products or services as you but who seem to be involved in every social conversation out there. People are tweeting their stuff, sharing their links on Facebook, talking up their promotions and referencing their videos or SlideShare presentations in conversations all across the web.

Bottom line, your competitors are no longer just the names you’ve always known; your competition is anyone who gets themselves in front of your customer’s line of sight.

Once you’re aware of the volume of competition you truly have, you can take action to come out on top. Yes, a big part of that is to focus on a sound SEO strategy (more on that here). And it’s also important to have a meaningful presence across several platforms. But more than that, it is important that you truly understand the value your customers consistently say they receive from you that is unique and meaningful. And turn that value proposition into a Brand Vision that is reflected throughout your organization and your communications.

Just as you compete with your local brick-and-mortar types by being uniquely “you,” so too can you successfully compete with virtual entities—as long as you narrowly focus on what you do best.

Heck, you might even show up in your competition’s searches and steal a few sales from them.

If you’d like to read more about competing with search engine competition, I recommend checking out this thoughtful blog post from TopRank.

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That’s the conclusion you could draw from the response to this article over at AdAge.com. Why would so many feel creative briefs have become irrelevant, and who is to blame? Some blame clients for cramming too much information in them, or for being too “boilerplate.” Others blame agencies for not being creative enough in their approach to briefs. Others say briefs don’t take into concern the prospect’s point of view. One commenter even went so far as to argue “The brief is dead.”

It’s true the “traditional” brief leaves much to be desired in these days when marketers are pushing more and more initiatives, talking to more different audiences and being involved in a variety of Social Media platforms that require creative decisions to be made on the fly. The tightly-defined “packaged-goods-era” creative brief (that spelled out everything from the exact size of an ad to what “mandatories” need to be addressed) is way too confining when it comes to developing integrated multi-platform campaigns and programs. What if, for instance, the creative team determines the best solution to a client’s problem isn’t necessarily a print ad, but a web video series? Will the brief let them consider it?

Yet without a brief, how will agencies and clients stay on the same page?

For an industry that supposedly embraces “change” and “bold moves,” it’s interesting how a lot of us have gotten locked into approaching problems the same old way, even when we have evidence that way is no longer working. It’s time agencies and clients reconsidered the brief to once again to make it a useful tool in these days of multi-channel dialogue.

Is there a prescription out there to make the creative brief relevant once again?

Our view is that the traditional agency creative brief is a throw-back to a time when it was assumed that we could manipulate consumer behavior by crafting the “right” message. The overriding question behind every brief was “What do we have to say to make you buy from us?”

Today, the consumer has access to many sources of information (not just the marketer) and in general, she puts less weight on what a marketer says than what she hears from friends, family and her community. As a result, successful marketing is not primarily about communication anymore; it is about transparently demonstrating an understanding of a consumer’s problems and concerns and addressing them in a unique, meaningful way. The question for marketers today is “Who do we have to BE in order to attract you as a customer.” It involves operations as well as marketing, as well as an on-going communication stream. In order to lead to success, any iteration of a creative brief must acknowledge this truth.

The next generation creative brief should start with the organization’s Brand Vision, which answers the question “What’s the one thing we want people to feel (and think of) when our name is mentioned, that is unique, meaningful and true.” Putting this thought at the forefront of every brief, whether for a branding ad campaign, a social media promotion or a price-and-item ad, assures that whatever the communication, it will be crafted with the intention that receivers will walk away with the same emotional take away. The brief itself needs to be acknowledged as a flexible document that serves as the “starting point” for both agency and client.

Yesterday’s “campaigns” have given way to today’s “content platforms.” As conditions on the ground change, and as new opportunities or obstacles surface, so, too does the nature of communication.

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As proof, Social Media detractors point to two prominent marketers who cast their lot in Social Media and (apparently) came up losers—Pepsi and Burger King.

Some background: this past year, Pepsi opted not to advertise in the Super Bowl, instead embarking on the ambitious “Pepsi Refresh” project in Social Media. And Burger King, in lieu of matching McDonald’s dollar-for-dollar in paid media, instead leaned heavily on such noted Social Media campaigns as the Whopper Sacrifice and the Subservient Chicken.

And here we are, with Pepsi sales down 5% year/year, and the brand mired in third place. And Burger King having just experienced its sixth consecutive quarter of declining sales.

Some of the loudest voices in the room would have you believe it’s all Social Media’s fault.

If only things were that cause-and-effect.

The truth is, looking at the situations from the 10,000 foot level, just as you’d suspect, both marketers have challenges that go well beyond the decision of whether or not to tweet regularly or start a Facebook page. Both entered the recession #2 in a market with a strong dominant leader (in dicey economic times, market leaders can be expected to outperform the category to everyone else’s detriment). Both marketers suffered unsettling turnover in marketing and management. And most telling, both have made questionable marketing moves beyond the scope of Social Media. Pepsi, once the choice of the “new generation,” lost that mantle to emerging products such as Mountain Dew, Gatorade and the assorted energy drinks, then compounded matters by going through its much-lambasted multi-million dollar Peter Arnell logo redesign (exemplified by the much-mocked memo which infamously equated the new design with “the Earth’s magnetic fields and the sun’s radiation”). And Burger King? The marketer used nearly 60% of its ad budget in late 2010 in an ill-fated attempt to unseat McDonald’s dominance in the breakfast daypart. That fiasco made Gallipoli look like a stand-off.

And interestingly enough, at the current time, both marketers are operating without a Chief Marketing Officer. I’d wager that the lack of a strong visionary marketing leader has more to do with the brands’ struggles than decisions as to where it spends its marketing bucks.

Not to totally absolve Pepsi and Burger King’s Social media efforts of all blame. For starters, Social Media proponents were way too ebullient about the efforts, and heaped much praise on them before they ever generated an inkling of a result. And the strategies of both (if you can call them that) were questionable, in my opinion.

Regarding the Pepsi Refresh Project, the marketer seemed way more interested in the “crowdsourcing” part of the project than the actual good works being done. It seemed more like a marketing ploy than an authentic “cause marketing” campaign. Pepsi didn’t focus on a single unifying cause, like safe drinking water to the world or shoes for kids in developing nations. The emphasis on the crowdsourcing element proved controversial as well. There were well-publicized allegations of cheating. The projects touted by well-organized and well-connected non-profits benefited at the expense of average grass-roots consumers. Nowhere was this more evident that in the Gulf Refresh Project launched just after the BP oil spill. You can read about the issues we found with that project here.

And for Burger King? While its Social Media efforts were entertaining, product-focused and well-integrated into its media advertising, it all had a very tactical feel to it. Burger King has long lacked a cohesive strategic platform. What does the brand stand for? I’d bet if you asked 10 consumers, you might get 10 different answers.

Sorry, but “If only they’d have been in the Super Bowl” is not a grown-up response to the ails of Pepsi and Burger King. Marketers who think in terms of “either/or” when it comes to paid media versus Social Media are embarrassingly out of touch. Social Media, when used correctly and integrated into offline efforts, add depth to and amplify a winning strategy. (Great examples of this include the recent Evian “Rollerskaing Babies” and Old Spice “Man on a Horse” campaigns). Conversely, without a winning strategy, Social Media (as with any other media) are reduced to a series of “throw-it-against-the-wall” tactics. Just like an aimless logo redesign or a tagline-du-jour.

And speaking of Content Strategy (how’s that for a segue?), that will be what I’m covering in the upcoming intensive Social Media workshop through GSI’s BizStreet on April 28. If you’re interested, find out more and register here. Hope to see you there.

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QR code linking to Circling Raven's video tour.

I think most of us expected a scenario like this to be most likely to come about through the medium of television. What we are seeing though is that it is actually playing out right now in print media. Thanks to development and use of QR codes.

A QR code is basically a cell phone readable bar code. QR (or Quick Response) codes automatically direct users of mobile devices (like a smart phone or an iPad) to a specific destination online.

QR reader apps are readily available, and basically turn every smart phone into a QR reader (by the end of 2012, smart phone are projected to outnumber feature phones). The idea is, if you see an ad, shelf talker or product package that intrigues you, and if it has a QR code, your smart phone will read the code as a URL, and take you to the web content that’s linked to the QR code. No need to open your browser or type in a URL. It’s all done automatically.

It could take you to a page on the company’s web site with more information on the product, or client testimonials, FAQs, or even coupon offers. QRs can even link to phone numbers, email addresses or pre-formatted SMS (text) messages.

The thing is, this tiny bit of real estate of less than 1 square inch can be used to help “fill out” the story on your product. You can even include a means to purchase the product (or make a reservation) at the QR destination.

QR codes can be easily generated right online without any special equipment, expertise or software. A couple of good places to visit would be Kaywa or QRstuff .

There are literally hundreds of creative uses for QR codes. One of our clients, Circling Raven Golf Course in Worley, Idaho, used a QR code to link from a magazine ad to an eight-minute video tour of the course. To date, the video has received more than 33,000 views on YouTube (not all driven by the QR code, obviously).

As useful as QR codes are to consumers, they could prove to be the savior printed media has been waiting for. It is no secret that ad spending in newspapers and magazines has plummeted over the past few years. Could having QRs serve as a new “link” between the ad and the sale breathe new life into these media?

Bottom line, advertisers are all about performance. And if printed media can quantify how ads with QRs are driving sales, expect to see a renaissance from the “dead tree guys.”

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That being said, I thought this might be a great opportunity to unveil our own end-of-year list. But rather than focus on the highs or lows of the past year, I thought, why not revisit campaigns that, quite literally, changed everything.

These are campaigns that gave us not just great ads, but forced us to rethink the very possibilities of persuasive communication. They’re presented in more-or-less sequential order.

1. Volkswagen “Think Small” (Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1962)

The now-famous Beetle campaign from DDB demonstrated how a marketer could succeed by creating a personality for his/her product, not by talking about the product, but by making the campaign more about the buyer. Volkswagen ads were like a dialogue with customers. Buyers could see themselves as part of the Volkswagen community. Looking at the DDB campaign en toto, one would surmise the Volkswagen buyer to be smart, frugal, no-nonsense and possessing an understated sense of humor. Truthfully, who wouldn’t want to be seen like that?

2. Xerox “Brother Dominic” (Needham, Harper Steers, 1976)

Until this famous TV Benedictine monk came along, business-to-business advertising was dull as dirt, pretty much confined to cold, boring sell sheets that reps would leave with their business cards. Business people don’t have time to be entertained, so the thinking went, so advertising to them as we would consumers is a waste of time. Kudos to Needham for remembering that business people are consumers, too. And that the best way to demonstrate a product’s true benefits are through storytelling, not bland bullet points.

3. FedEx “Sedelmaier campaign” (Ally Gargano, 1978)

In the 1970s and 80s, Chicago Director Joe Sedelmaier directed some of the funniest commercials ever aired, whether for FedEx, Wendy’s (“Where’s the Beef”), Alaska Airlines, Sprint (where I got the chance to work with him) and many others. His unique style of visual humor helped expand the definition of “what’s funny” in commercials. Until Joe, humor was pretty much restricted to quippy one-liners. Suddenly, sight gags were funny, characters were funny, ridiculous storytelling was funny. But the key thing was, with Joe, the needle moved. While many in the business derided him for “making fun” of the customer, results showed that “the customer” liked it, remembered it and acted on it.

4. Miller Lite “Ex-Jocks” (Backer-Spielvogel, 1976)

The use of jocks in advertising has become somewhat ubiquitous these days. And many of the spots are quite entertaining. But before the original Miller Lite spots, athlete advertising was pretty much of the hold-up-the-product-and-smile variety…not much in the way of capturing the personality of the jocks. Then Miller Lite came along. And Backer-Spielvogel was tasked with making a lite beer acceptable to the largest segment of beer drinkers—men. This campaign did it in spades. It not only propelled Miller Lite from a niche brand to the best selling brand of beer in America, it solidified jocks’ place in advertising lore.

5. Nike “Michael Jordan” (Wieden & Kennedy, 1986)

Nike did dozens of great ad campaigns prior to signing a rookie basketball player named Michael Jordan as a spokesperson in 1985. But Jordan became the brand, and the brand be came Jordan. The two represented the same values, and became inseparable, so far as Nike’s audience was concerned. The spots were so well crafted, they felt as if they were coming directly from Jordan, not scripted for him. Even these earliest spots featuring Spike Lee as Mars Blackman gave a hint at what was to come.

6. Apple MacIntosh “1984” (Chiat/Day, 1983)

Okay, so this is the low-hanging fruit. Yes, it ushered in the era of the bigger-than-life Superbowl commercial. But more importantly, it demonstrated how cinematic production values and flawless storytelling, when combined with a legitimate product promise, can move mountains.

7. National Milk Processors Board “Got Milk” (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, 1994)

A great campaign to be sure, in every sense of the word. But “game changing?” I struggled with this at first, then decided to include it, for much the same reason Volkswagon and Xerox were included. For years, the Milk Board ran a campaign called “Milk Does a Body Good” that did a pretty good job of highlighting all the reasons a consumer should WANT to buy milk. Despite all those millions spent, growth was non-existent. Then Got Milk captured America’s fancy. And it did it by acknowledging HOW people used the product and WHY they wanted it. In short, folks didn’t buy milk because it was loaded with protein and Vitamin D; they bought it because somehow, nothing goes better with those monster chocolate chip cookies you love. Not just storytelling, but honest storytelling.

BONUS – 8. Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” (Wieden & Kennedy, 2010)

Maybe this one is too recent to be included as a campaign of seismic proportions. But to my mind, it is the first campaign that successfully integrated traditional media with community-building Social Media to create unprecedented buzz (more than 1.4 BILLION views and mentions) and sales response (sales up over 100% in the two months following the campaign’s launch). And that doesn’t include the “updating-the-stodgy-brand” factor. From this day forward, I doubt there will be a “big idea” in this business that doesn’t include a strong Social Media component.

Can you think of any other campaigns you felt “changed everything?” Let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

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The tactic I’m speaking of is for a marketer to create/remix/mash-up a commercial message to run exclusively in a specific environment. The latest case in point is Clorox Bleach, who created this television commercial to run during the airing of the acclaimed AMC series “Mad Men.”

“Mad Men” isn’t exactly tearing up in the ratings. The show averages just over a million viewers per episode, which for an original broadcast series is a microscopic audience. So why would Clorox go to the trouble of creating a one-off spot that will only run a few times at most, reach comparatively few people, and might not even index well against its core target audience?

The answer, I believe, is impact. By tongue-in-cheekily tying its creative message to recurring themes of the series, the brand shares an inside joke with the show’s fans, while still honoring the brand promise of the product (gets whites, whiter). The production values of the spot are quite modest, so it didn’t cost a heck of a lot to produce the spot.

Another important thing to note about this spot: people are talking about it. Just Google “Clorox Mad Men Commercial” and you’ll be greeted with more than a page worth of search results, with bloggers, commenters, Facebookers and even news web sites weighing in on the spot. Something tells me that doesn’t happen when Clorox runs one of its one-size-fits-all spots in the pabulum of afternoon programming.

Small investment. Big viewer involvement. Even bigger buzz.

The bigger question is, of course, will the ad help sell more product? Or was it simply a case of clever ad guys talking to each other? Time will tell. But because the spot played up the advertiser’s key sales point, I gotta think it will reinforce that point with viewers.

Advertisers have been creating special ads to run in event programs or one-time specials (such as the Super Bowl) seemingly forever. But what makes this a winner in my book is the special combination of relevant, edgy creative and spot-on placement.

It’s the kind of success you can expect if you really get to know your market and endeavor to make a meaningful connection with them.

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It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that ads that do a better job of engaging or entertaining us also do a better job of selling. Yet there are some in this business who still tend to discount creativity in advertising to be somewhat of a commodity. They see “entertainment” and “selling” as somehow being mutually exclusive. These folks for whatever reason have yet to buy into the notion that the quality of creative corresponds directly to the success of a marketing program. As support, they may point to the success of spots such as the infomercial-esque “as seen on TV” ads as proof that it’s what the ad says, not how it’s said that matters. And they have a point: interrupt people with $30 million in paid media, and the needle will move.

But more and more, we are moving to a model of opt-in content. Less are we able to interrupt the consumer with whatever message we feel like and expect them to pay attention to it.

The dynamics of Social Media illustrate this perfectly. There are no multi-million “buys” on YouTube, Facebook, blogs or the like. The barrier to entry is non-existent. Access to Social Media platforms has been democratized. Anyone can post anything. And the success of that content isn’t how much the creator puts behind it. It’s on how many users feel inclined to pass it forward and to talk it up.

In the opt-in world, you’re only as good as your content. A great illustration of this point would be to compare the results of a recent Social Media success (The Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like”) to one that’s not-so-successful (Cisco’s “Ted From Accounting” series).

In the Old Spice campaign, Social Media users were invited to correspond with The Old Spice Guy. Old Spice’s agency (Wieden & Kennedy) then shot nearly 200 “personalized web videos” addressed to fans (and Social Media heavyweights) over a couple of days and posted them online. The resulting buzz generated an estimated 1.4 BILLION views, hits and mentions over the period of a few weeks. (Oh, and sales were up over 100% over that period.) You can view some of the spots here.

On the other hand, Cisco’s “Ted From Accounting” series was launched as a web series in hopes of going viral.

Response to the web videos was less than overwhelming (fewer than 10,000 views, despite a huge PR push). One commenter on their YouTube page summed up reaction to the campaign this way: “I am embarrassed for your marketing department. This is the sad result of a poorly orchestrated attempt at some sort of viral leaching by a room full of middle aged guys, who’s (sic) kids saw something on YouTube that they thought would be a good idea to copy.”

Ouch.

Granted this is hardly an apples-to-apples comparison. The Old Spice campaign started as a mass media campaign and extended to include the digital component. But while “Ted in Accounting” didn’t have that mass media lift, my bet is that you could have put millions behind it and viewers’ reactions wouldn’t have been any different than the YouTube poster above.

The digital world is proving what we who have developed offline content for years have always known: people aren’t going to waste their time with boring content.

Posted by Mickey

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