From Compete. Hmmm…Free, constantly updated with “See what’s happening — right now“, and portable. How could it not? Continuation from my previous post that only included NYTimes.
I have a lot of respect for Barry Judge – the CMO of Best Buy. Barry is not only good at marketing, but he is excellent with his understanding of his customer, how to reach them, and most importantly – how to please them and help them become brand champions for Best Buy. We’re all trying to do that with our respective audiences. The difference with Barry Judge is that he is an executive that puts himself in a position of complete openness – right down to the average customer shopping in one of his stores or researching online.
He’s one of the few CMOs that I know of that is embracing the Social Web at all levels. Through his blog, his Twitter account, and other one to many activations like the YouTube video below, he is very clear with his message: Be transparent, show people what’s good and not so good about you to build trust, and talk WITH your customer, not AT them. Sage insight – all big brands would be exponentially more successful if they embraced that single tenant alone. Mr. Judge has a quote from the video that is important for all brands, big and small, to embrace:
“You’re a part of the conversation, a part of what is being said about your brand. You don’t get to tell customers what they get to think anymore”
A very simple, yet powerful statement.
It’s launch day in the U.S. for our new advertising campaign. You all got a sneak peek last week, but today we pull the curtain back and show you all of the great executions we’ve put in place to support our efforts. Credit to a crack team @ OMD for helping us build a spectacular media plan, including targeting several ‘first mover opportunities’ that will help you get to know our ‘Rockstars‘.
Never before has the New York Times allowed a complete overlay of their homepage. We did that today with the image you see to the left of this post. In addition a contingent of engineering, marketing, and sales folks were on hand at the opening of the NASDAQ this morning to kick off the new week in the market. Rather than ringing the bell to initiate the opening of the market, our group harmonized the Intel ‘bong‘ to commence trading – a first ever for the NASDAQ. To complete the New York experience, we’ve given you the opportunity to share your vision of ‘Tomorrow’ to the world by sending (click on ‘You on Tomorrow @ the bottom of the page) your thoughts to the NASDAQ and Reuters boards in Times Square. If you’re not in the Big Apple today, please check out the dualing Times Square webcams.
The Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign is scheduled to be the cornerstone of our advertising for the foreseeable future. We’ll be broadcasting our Rockstar and Oops spots on the major networks and across cable starting this week. We’re hoping you’ll have as much fun with this campaign as we plan to.
From BrandRepublic:
“Revolution teamed up with i-level’s social media agency Jam to reveal the 100 most mentioned brands on Twitter and how they are aiming to capitalise on the buzz”
There are quite a number of technology companies ahead of @intel. I wonder if they are aggregating all of our Twitter mojo? Collectively our social media teams here at Intel will work hard to earn a steadily rising rank on Twitter. Intel – Sponsors of Tomorrow.
An amazingly simple concept – offer a GREAT service (for free) on a device that everyone wants, make it easy to bookmark their favorite tunes, and offer a path to purchase – people will not only be fans, but they will stray from ‘free’ long enough to pay for the tracks they really care about. While Pandora doesn’t make much from the sale (the two commerce options, iTunes and Amazon, take home the bulk of the profit), it does provide them with an additional revenue steam outside of simply selling advertising through the site. According to TechCrunch:
“Users are buying about a million songs a month now from these affiliate links on Pandora…. Of those, a solid 20% are coming directly from Pandora’s iPhone app.”
Pandora was smart to partner with Apple. In return for adding value to the iPhone through it’s app (most downloaded app in 2008) – the company is gaining customers it might not otherwise have had.
I’ll reiterate the title of this post: Cool Device+Cool Service = Happy Customer+Revenue. I’m a fan and a happy customer of both. I’ll be streaming Pandora in my car as I head out on a roadtrip this weekend – maybe I’ll even buy a track or two along the way…
Today we (Intel – the company that supports my social media habit) did a ‘pre-release‘ of sorts for our new Sponsors of Tomorrow Advertising Campaign, officially launching on May 11th. It’s the first advertising campaign that focus on our brand vs. a product or product line. The first news hit at the end of the day in the New York Times, and has quickly taken off on the social web as the print and video advertisements get distributed digitally through multiple channels. As an Intel employee – I’m excited by the technology we are building and am looking forward to being a part of the innovations of the future. Here’s a sneak peek at our upcoming TV spot.
From Forrester Research:
“This growth is due to marketers seeking lower cost, more accountable channels which are also widely used by their customers. This year, we are also finding that marketers are migrating dollars away from traditional channels and into interactive ones.”
Cheaper, Measurable, and Useful. Novel concept.
Chas Edwards, Chief Revenue Officer @ Federated Media discusses the need for B2B publishers to migrate to digital faster. Even though they are increasing their online activities, that growth failed to offset B2B media companies decline last year.
During his acceptance speech for the lifetime achievement award from the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Dr. Grove cautioned the audience on the future of the patent system, likening it’s foundation to the instability that led to the crumbling of Wall Street (clipped from CNET News):
“Patents themselves have become products. They’re instruments of investment traded on a separate market, often by speculators motivated by the highest financial return on their investment.”
Considering the source of advice – we should all take heed, and consider Thomas Jefferson’s litmus test carefully as we look to the future of innovation: “The true value of an invention is its usefulness to the public“.
In a move to stem their flagging viewership, MTV has ‘gone social‘. The Alex Chung Show, slotted in the highly important after school slot will be the Total Request Live of the social networking generation – going so far as to allow users to interact directly with programming in real time by uploading their favorite videos, including their own creations, that might be slotted in for air time on the show. Appealing? Maybe. Then again – maybe they should remember what they started in the early 80s and actually play some videos. Will Social Media Kill the Radio Star?