I had the privilege of representing Carrot Creative at Comic Con 2010 at the launch of Her Universe (you can read more about Her Universe in this previous writeup). This year’s convention was the largest ever. Floor space was at a premium and I had my credentials checked more frequently than at Terminal A in LaGuardia. Several themes were overwhelmed the convention center (much to the chagrin, no doubt, of Comic Con purists): Big Name Studios, Gaming and more Big Name Studios. Here are a few of my observations and a shameless plug for our ultra-cool client.

Her Universe

A pre-requisite for employment at Carrot is that you must be a Star Wars fanboy/girl to some degree. So, the first thing I did upon entering the convention was head straight to the Star wars “wing”.  There’s really no way to describe just how much space Star Wars took up this year – they owned CC2010! A stroke of good fortune had the Her Universe booth right in the middle of it all, the most heavily trafficked area of the entire show. Awesome. Fangirls of all shapes, sizes and ages were lined up grabbing as much girly schwag as they could get their hands on. This will be a spark, for sure, of all sorts of fangirl-inspired, female-focused clothing lines. I caught up with Her Universe creator (and voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clones Wars) Ashley Eckstein:

A testament to the power of the fangirl phenom can be seen in this young lady’s devotion to Ahsoka/Ashley:

Attack of the Monster Studios

While Star Wars was everywhere, new title launches by major studios really dominated buzz generation. Leading the way was TRON: Legacy, the sequel to the awesome original. The line just to get a picture of the epic life-size Light Cycle was absurd. Granted, it was uber-cool. Yes, it was all very sexy and exciting but, to be fair, the major studios so overwhelmed the convention it seemed to detract from the underground feel of the show’s roots. Comic books were literally and figuratively relegated to the corner unless, of course, they were Marvel or DC titles.

Just a Game?

Video games were a constant draw all around the center. They often had the biggest mega-booths (see Red Faction: Armageddon pic) The difference with the game pavilions was an obvious and concerted effort to get fans to explore and (hopefully) endorse the new title. It was almost like a gaming convention with massive console set-ups and contests. It was all very player focused (in contrast to the movie studios which took a more drool-at-us-from-a-distance approach).

Takeaways

The fan’s social graph made an entrance in this year’s Comic Con. I don’t feel it had a big impact yet, as the really clever strategies have yet to be devised. Warner Bros., for example, gave away exclusive schwag bags just to Foursquare check-ins but they ran out fast and it was a short lived phenomenon. Social Media was, therefore, just a tool to get the word out. The next wave of social graph interactive engagement has yet to hit. When it does, you’d better believe Carrot will be ready for it.

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My prediction is that there is much more to come for this type of “ionospheric” implementation of the Twitter platform. Ideally Twitter will become the de-facto standard for sending a “personal” note to anyone, anywhere. Users can easily and actively vet incoming communications in a separate space from their traditional, and practically sacred, inboxes.

@anywhere will push relevant users to the forefront and allow Twitter accounts to become a more mainstream tool for interpersonal communication. Judging by the early screenshots, I’d say the Twitter team is still catering to power-users and not doing enough to make the service accessible to the masses. Case-in-point—to re-tweet, reply, or view a users profile page they seem to only use icons. While this is accepted iconography within the Twitter community, it will not open up the platform to casual observers—an absolute must if they continue to organically grow their user-base.

The bigger-picture implications of @anywhere come in the simple fact that the future of communication will come not from impersonal phone numbers, but from personalized “usernames” that will make exchanging quick messages with friends seem like a world away from the numerical strings that made up the majority of email addresses until the launch of the mainstream version of AOL in the early ‘90s. Instead of limiting ourselves to simple text transactions, I can see the Twitter ecosystem opening up to include a wide-swath of communications options—voice and long-form messaging, along with the short bursts of text we’re currently using it for.

It could become a switchboard for the modern era, nicely sidestepping and/or complementing everything Google has rolled out over the past six months.

As soon as we get our hands on the platform we’ll be able to post a more robust commentary on whether the future value of this tool is in the sheer number of sites its placed within (a potential advertising platform), or whether it serves as a launchpad for future structural changes for the service (communications switchboard).

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Speakers at the PR Advanced event included representatives from JetBlue, the Boston Red Sox, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wholefoods and myself, representing Carrot Creative and my personal brand, Just Creative Design.

Entitled “The Art of Online Self Promotion: Branding, Blogging & Social Media“, my talk gave insight on how to create a strong personal brand identity, how to set up a blog & run it as a self promotional tool and how to build relationships across social media platforms… and then some.

It all turned out a huge success, considering the fact that all of the Carrot Creative business cards & stickers had evaporated by the end of the talk. Student and teacher feedback was also another great indicator, as well as a few more offers to talk elsewhere, including an offer for regular weekly lectures.

A few attendees of the conference wrote about what they learned from me and the conference as a whole.  A select few are linked below:

• Branding Yourself ‘PR Advanced’ Wrap Up by Ginny Rose
• ‘PR Advanced’ Conference Wrap Up by Emily Forrest
• Branding Myself by Ellie Botelho
• Takeaways from PR Advanced 2010 by Emilie Toole

There are also a few pictures up of the PR Advanced event, with more to follow.

The #PRAdvanced hashtag turned into a trending topic on Twitter, which was made possible by the Q&A that was set up via Tweetdeck (such a great idea). There are a lot of great tips to pick up from that stream, so be sure to check it out.

Overall it was an extremely pleasurable experience, supported by awesome event coordination (great job Chelsea n co!), a plethora of talented speakers and most importantly, the extremely passionate students & teachers that gave up a Saturday up to attend. Carrot Creative and myself thank you all for the support.

Oh, and thanks once again for the shiny thank you certificate.

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Recently I had the privilege of participating in a groundbreaking social media study underwritten by Cisco, spearheaded by one of my mentors, Dr. Neil Hair and sponsored by my Alma Mater,  Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the University of Navarra. The comprehensive global study sought to better understand how consumer-based social media tools effect both interpersonal collaboration within a corporate setting and external communication with key stakeholders.

The direct impact of this study is not only a greater understanding of what sort of best practices have arisen in the advertising/PR industry but also how many firms actually have such policies. It’s fascinating to see how firms of different sizes and specialties leverage either embrace or choose to ignore the power of conversational messaging.

A quoted excerpt from the published report:

“At Carrot, we live and breathe social media. We work with our clients to build the best social media strategies that will help them meet their business goals and reach more customers. What we’re working to instill with our clients is the idea that information consumption is no longer a passive task. Instead, businesses need to take a proactive approach with their brand and demonstrate to customers that they are hearing and delivering on their needs, now and in the future.” – Maury Postal

Some additional highlights:

• Of the organizations interviewed, 75 percent identified social networks as the consumer-based social media tools they primarily use, while roughly 50 percent of the group also identified extensive use of microblogging.
• Only one in seven of the companies noted a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes, indicating that the potential risks associated with these tools in the enterprise are either overlooked or not well understood.
• Only one in five participants identified any policies in place concerning the use of consumer-based social networking technologies in the enterprise.

We at Carrot recognize the challenges that large organizations face when trying to implement an external facing social media campaign. Enacting a clear set of usage guidelines and content directives are key to any mass-scale digital communication initiative—something we’ve not only helped some of the largest organizations on the planet formulate and place into practice—but also take to heart internally. We pride ourselves on our interaction with every major mainstream social media tool as well as understanding the implications of having our people in the public eye—something any business, of any size needs to come to terms with in the modern age of always on, immersive media.

The full findings of the study are published here.

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At Carrot Creative, we choose to work with brands we truly believe in, creating the absolute best digital representation of our clients products and of ourselves. Brands need to understand how powerful it is to have these “brand evangelists” reppin’ them (aside from the agency partnerships). More importantly, they need to know how to reach these consumers who can build a more visceral connection to the brand using social media.

One way is the “free stuff” method. You may have noticed the influx of brands offering contests or free samples on Twitter. They’re interacting with people on Twitter to use/engage with their products. Here are some examples:

• Our designer Steve Badowski had a “late night out” (take that as you want to) with the Carrot team. The next morning we talked about our love for cocunut water and how it cures a small hangover and decided to tweet about it. O.N.E Coconut responded to Steve’s tweet and sent us a free box of 12! (Thank you!)
• @thegingerpeople were offering free samples of their new ginger candy online. I simply followed up on their tweet with an email and Boo-ya! ginger candy is coming my way.
• Last week Orbitz offered free tickets under the following promotional tweet: “We’re giving away a free airline ticket today! FOLLOW @Orbitz & RT this message to be eligible to win http://bit.ly/bVSuU” By re-tweeting (RT) this post, you were automatically entered into a free airfare raffle. The intent of a contest like this is to increase followers and bring Orbitz’s Twitter Community that much closer to the brand. Not to mention, that by engaging with Twitter’s audience these brands are getting “props” from the social media pundits.

By offering free products, these brands are playing out Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Theory of selling more for less in exchange for greater reach and frequency. As a consumer, this was a totally awesome experience because I got the chance to speak directly to the brand. By creating relationships with these brands I become more likely to support future products. and my followers will also see my tweet becoming fans as well because they trust my judgment. (It all comes down to trust… right marketers?)

By enabling social media and using the long-tail theory the brand is giving the consumer more options to engage with the product. Soooooo, maybe we should start handing out free carrots?

Do you have another example of the free stuff method on Twitter? Feel free to leave it in the comments or share it on Twitter @carrotcreative.

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I’ve been a theater buff since my first performance in 6th grade as Lucy in “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown.” My parents then began taking me into the city to see the shows on (and off) Broadway. Cats. Les Miserables. Miss Saigon. Rent (about 5 times) Mamma Mia! Speed the Plow. The list goes on. While I always felt a connection to the music and performance, the connection usually stayed on my Discman where I could immediately put myself back into the seats and relive the show from anywhere.

Now, with the help of social media—the connection to Broadway and its shows and actors has become much more apparent online. Ken Davenport, a Broadway and Off-Broadway producer and the founder of the social networking website, BroadwaySpace.com recently contributed to a Mashable guest post about Broadway communicating with its fans.

While this is one of the first posts I’ve seen really address this industry and social media, I’m not surprised as even Ken points out, “The majority of today’s Broadway audience were born well before the PC era. Marketing 101 will tell you to speak to your audience in the language that they understand, and one of Broadway’s prime demos is the “55 Year Old Woman.” This era is still new to Twitter and Facebook.

But, it’s changing. Ken posted some great examples of Broadway shows using social media including Altar Boys, Rock of Ages and Next to Normal. The Broadway musical revival HAIR also caught my eye with a huge interactive presence in social media including a Twitter account with live updates from the cast and crew, behind the scenes photos on the Facebook page and a YouTube and MySpace presence.

The industry is perfect for social media and a great place to connect with the thousands of fans that cross through Broadway every day. From individual performers to the full cast and crew, the shows can connect with the many fans eager to continue the experience they had in the theater once they get back home and open up their laptops. They want to know what goes on behind the curtain and see videos of the cast and crew singing impromptu versions of the hit songs. The content is there and eager to be seen by so many.

This is definitely a space Carrot Creative is looking into more as recent conversations have brought up this space and the need to provide some unique ideas to make all of this happen.

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I received this email from Johnnie Walker (I’m a member of “The Striding Man Society” that offers some really great events for tastings of the brand-if you get the chance, go!) I get emails from them ever so often about new events or promotions and click on them at leisure to see if anything fun is coming up.  This email today was different. They were letting me know that Johnnie Walker has created a Facebook Fan Page and offered an easy click to become a fan right from the email.

Curious to check it out, I clicked on the “Become a Fan” button which sent me to their custom designed Johnnie Walker Facebook page at facebook.com/johnniewalker. Tons of content: videos, photos, promotions, deals. I liked it and I “Became a Fan.”

While some may say that the initial email defeats the purpose of engaging with brands in social media through viral tactics, I think Johnnie Walker and team did this well on a variety of levels. Here’s why:

• Design. They designed it with customized tabs and information. It has custom content, it’s visually appealing and it provides content their fans want. (A lot of information they already put in their emails)
• Access. Their fans were on email already so inviting them to join the Facebook Page was a logical step. If they had not sent out the monthly newsletters it would have been a bit weird, but these are people who opted in to getting the emails.
• Opportunity. You can’t advertise on Facebook if you’re an alcohol brand. Facebook Fan Pages provide a space to have a unique presence with the community that’s attractive to engage with.

What do you think about brands asking you to engage with them on Facebook via email? I asked some people on Twitter what they thought of this and posted the responses below. As you’ll see, mixed answers with some strongly disliking and others open to the idea with some limitations.  Leave YOUR thoughts in the comments section below.

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I was lucky enough to be invited to keynote yesterday’s IDI Marketers Forum International Conference at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. The conference is intended to provide valuable, up-to-date information from top internationally recognized experts to the direct marketing community. With an experience working mostly in online marketing, one might think that a direct marketing approach needed an entirely new perspective on social media.

But, when you think about it, there’s a basic theme every industry needs to think about when entering this space— just get in it. Get in it now and learn quickly, you’re already behind.

Speaking to an audience, as I said “full of suits and ties and not really social media savvy” I approached it with the “Don’t be afraid tactic—get on it. Everyone else is.” (I also approached it with the–let’s have a conversation, I may (and did) add some curse words Gary Vaynerchuck style. I just hope my mother never comes!)  This seemed to resonate well before the storm of questions that always come at the end of these panels. What about privacy issues? Why would people want to keep putting their information out there?

It’s a very good question, but people are continuing to put information about themselves. Minor information about their favorite food or sports team turns into data that marketers have been dreaming of for years. Accept the fact that people are comfortable exposing themselves online and we can capitalize on this for our own purposes. Yes, we can be a bit selfish as marketers now and do this.

As always at these events you have some great conversations and I did with our good friend Simon Burrell from Newsweek, and Doug Sacks from Focus Worldwide. Keith Messer at Data Services is also doing some pretty amazing stuff that I look forward to hearing about more. Plus, I made some new friends from National Geographic and the Harvard Business Publishing.

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Here’s my example. Did everyone see the Joaquin Phoenix meltdown on David Letterman from last week? Basically, he shows up in an “altered state” completely out of his mind and David Letterman, trained with experience teases him, jokes with him in the most awkward late night interview I’ve ever seen. The buzz flew around the interwebs with the YouTube video seeing over 1.3 million views! I can only imagine what his publicist was doing at the time of the show. (Probably frantically running for the Classifieds or a shot of Jack Daniels.) Word around the web was “He was on drugs” “He’s crazy” “Lost his mind”—Did you also know that Joaquin Phoenix was on to promote a movie? Not many people I talked to did unless they watched from the beginning when Letterman introduced him.

So, let’s think about this from a PR stand point. The goal of having him on the show was to promote his new movie Two Brothers which by the way had a HUGE ad push. But, as he slowly turned into joke of the week and the video gained traction on YouTube and blogs, is the movie now getting attention or just Joaquin and his crazy ways?

When thinking about the initial PR plan for the movie, I’m sure the team did NOT take this into account. Social media can make or break a PR plan in my opinion. This in some ways could actually be a “breaker” vs “maker.” What started as a simple plan for marketing a unique movie, getting the star on Letterman to promote the movie has now expanded past that and into a deeper look to the actor and cast through social media playbacks of a crazy video. From the flip side, AdAge goes into it more here and how the movie is actually doing quite well despite the Letterman meltdown.

As many client requests come in to “please make this go viral”—you can’t. You can only hope that a video of your brand gets 1.3 million views. But, would you want it to take away from your initial goal? Would you want the end result to be a mistake video getting a ton of traffic but overshadowing the main message? I don’t think so.

What do you think?

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What was really interesting was the amount of times I wondered if people were clicking on the site of the brand right after they ad appeared. I watched the Super Bowl with my MacBook on my lap. A lot of my friends (and many of you) were live tweeting the game from your iPhone or Blackberry. When GoDaddy said go to their site, I did-did you? When Denny’s offered free breakfast, I went-did you? (It crashed—but hey. Good thinking)

The awesome team over at Reprise Media released their 5th annual Search Marketing Scorecard ranking Super Bowl advertisers based on the level of integration between their television commercials and presence in search and social media –measuring how prepared each brand was to capture the demand created by their Super Bowl advertising investment. They were also tweeting during the game providing live commentary on the data being pulled into the report.

Winners include E-trade for the hilarious “leaked”outtakes of the E-trade baby leading up to the Super Bowl, Cash4Gold (MC Hammer + Ed McMahon + buying the right search words=success) and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes “Plant a Seed” call to action campaign. More can be found in the press release including the losers: Denny’s (site fail), Budweiser not taking advantage of Google’s lifted alcohol bans and Pixar’s Up movie.

The thing is, that with the current internet landscape and the constant muttering of brands saying they WANT to be online and engaged with their consumers—you would think that EVERY advertisement had an internet engagement piece and would  be part of the winners list. Unfortunately, there were many mistakes, some “could have beens” and some “what were they thinkings?”  Maybe next year.

Some of the Carrot Crew’s favorite ads from last night include:

CareerBuilder.com: Tips

Hulu: Alec in Huluwood

Pepsi: Refresh Anthem

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