Waiting in Transit…

Was offered this on Facebook recently in that little Advertising block on the right hand side of your screen offering a free marmite cereal bar. So I though ‘What the hell… let’s give it a go.’ Well I got it in the post yesterday and I was impressed by how integrated the whole campaign was in terms of Marmite launching the new innovation. The objectives must certainly have been awareness and trial, with a higher focus on trial of the product since the messaging of the campaign encourages feedback on their new product.

The product itself, well, it falls under the general feeling around Marmite doesn’t it? You either love it or hate it. Well, I do like Marmite in general and the cereal bar is pretty good. It’s not overbearingly marmite, but you get the taste and it fulfils all the passport factors of being a cereal bar.

I don’t know if they’ve done any TV advertising around it, but the Outdoor is fairly ubiquitous in London and very eye-catching and engaging. I especially love the twist and the emotion it creates around even thinking of having a Marmite showergel, Fabric Softener or Perfume. In contrast, the cereal bar looks like a great idea.

Check ‘em out…

Ad Agency: DDB

An overall brilliant marketing campaign which fitted Social Media into its mix and overall strategy pretty brilliantly and was the first FMCG brand to do so. The bars were also sampled at tube stations and other places and the sample bars through facebook were obviously voluntary and you had to put in your address. So instead of Social Media i.e. Facebook Ad units being the main driver it was, in fact, only a part of the campaign for marmite to increase its reach.

Great Idea. Great Work.

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Sampling, Social Media

I gave a presentation yesterday at the “Social Media and the Employment Relationship Conference” in Holborn, London.  Essentially, I was talking to a group of HR consultants and professionals and letting them know how to get involved and get started using Social Media in their particular context.

Here it is :)

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Employees, Employers, HR, London, Personal Branding, Presentation, Social Media

I’ve always seen Punk as a philosophy rather than a once off bunch of noisy kids with spiked hair and bad attitudes. It was about standing up to the establishment, breaking the rules, going against the norm.  They are the ultimate modern form of talking straight back with their own interpretation of how to talk back in the first place.  Hence, the below video, is a bit misplaced with comparing punk rock only to social media… it’s bigger than that.  The philosophy, I believe, transcends all media because it addresses the underlying intentions behind WHY we communicate.

So if you question the norms, don’t agree with them and voice your opinions with any media whatsoever… you are a PUNK.  Word… Enjoy the video :)

Technorati Tags: Punk, Punk Rock, Music, Philosophy, Social Media

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Music, Philosophy, Punk, Punk Rock, Social Media

This is most likely the reason first time users of Twitter stop, give up and bad-mouth it. I can’t blame them after watching this.

A message to the people who think Twitter sucks – You ARE FOLLOWING IDIOTS. If you followed the right people, Twitter is Awesome.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, College Humour
Peace.

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Humour, Social Media, Twitter

This is one of the simplest, most brilliant explanations of our current predicament in Marketing. Specially focusing on the relationship between branding and the consumer’s perception of brand and it’s evolution from the time products started getting packed and put onto shelves. Brilliant.

The short animation is done by Scholz & Friends.

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Social Media

Intel’s Digital Drag Race launches today. It’s a competition in which professional digital designers go head-to-head at designing under pressure. The site also has a consumer-generated aspect for non-professional designers.

The Idea: a collection of professional designers will spend 70 minutes on a computer powered by the brand new Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Processor using Adobe Creative Suite 4 to create a 17 second motion graphic using supplied assets; video, music, vector images. The content of the videos are to center on the themes of power, speed and innovation.

After each race, judges will select competitors with the best final product. The first two digital drag races will be unveiled on the Digital Drag Race today, site visitors will be able to view and vote for their favorite designs.

There is a cool Social Media Aspect to the campaign, other designers and artistsare able to download the same tools used in the competition to create their own 17 second masterpiece which can then be uploaded to a YouTube Channel and will also be featured on the Digital Drag Race site.

Razorfish developed the program and Ignite Social Media developed the social media portion of the campaign.

Link

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Design, Marketing, Social Media

Just read a great post by Adrants on Twitter still seeking a business model and still getting slammed two years on. The getting slammed part came particularly from Simon Dumenco who is a definite non-believer in the benefits of Twitter, especially if its a project which fails to make any money.

While Twitter has said and continues to say it has every intention of creating a business model which will support it beyond seed money, reading the revenue-generating notion “one idea is to charge companies th at want to use Twitter as an official channel to talk with their customers and monitor what they are saying,” causes one to ROFLOL to the point of gut-busting pain.

Charge companies? Charges companies? For what? Any company with half a brain already has access to an endless supply of free “listening” tools that offer fairly deep insight into Twitter usage and what’s being said about a particular brand.

Dumenco concludes not so inappropriately, writing, “I don’t think every tweet or blurp or bloop or fart that emanates from a human can or should have ads sold against it or be otherwise monetized.”

Of course Twitter is far more than any “blurp or bloop or fart that emanates from a human” , but still the man has a point. Twitter could charge a yearly fee to use the service, but then what should they charge? I certainly wouldn’t pay to follow a bunch of people talking about what they had for breakfast, or if they just came out for the shower, refreshed. Then again, if you’re paying for the service, maybe people who are really interested in adding value would buy into it and utilise it instead of it being just another social media plaything for the ever-growing population of digerati.

Another benefit of charging for it is that it would save us all from a barrage of useless advertising should Twitter opt for the advertising route.

I don’t know… maybe there is some creative way in which Twitter can make a good business model out of what they provide without totally pissing us all off. I hope they find it!

What do you think they should do?

While I’m here… :)

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Business, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Mandy de Waal, one of our esteemed judges has recently coined the phrase “twiction” to represent micro-stories, especially those created within 140 characters on the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. I found it extremely appropriate to put this new term into use for this competition.

What a ride! The South African “Twiction” competition has now come to a head with the winners in sight and the prizes ready to be sent off. Thanks once again to all the contestants, the beautiful and intelligent Judges and, of course, the sponsors!

Okay… Let’s get to it.

First Prize: @JasonEsch

“He was both at a loss and lost, staring at the road sign that seemed more to describe how he was feeling than where he was going: Bakgatla.”

Judges comments:
“A journey at a crossroads, with a real sense of character. The ending wins it for me.”

“Beautiful use of metaphor for such a short form, and strong expression on the archetypal journey and ability of humans to get lost on that journey.”

@JasonEsch wins a T-shirt from SpringLeap.com! Congratulations!

Second Prize: @yusufk

“Vuvuzela in one hand,phone in the other,he watched the cross float by 3 defendenders,deflect off a forehead into the net. Tweet:”SA Scores!”

Judges Comments:
“Sports offers up great narrative. The themes of struggle, perseverance and victory are timeless. The ‘tweet’ added a nice touch.”
“Another strongly descriptive entry, which conjures images of our strong sporting nation.”
“I am so excited about World Cup coming to SA, and I think it will be great for the country spirit. And every goal will help. So this captures that hope beautifully!”

Yusuf’s entry was a close contender for no. 1

@yusufk wins a $20 Amazon.com voucher from the guys at Qatarliving.com! Well Done!

Third Prize: @samanthaperry

“A writer entered a story competition, lost, and killed herself. The judges denied guilt, claiming the writer had terminal Bulwer-Lyttonitis”

Judges comments:
“ For the benefit of those who don’t know the reference – click over to http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ Clever entry; complete and concise.”
“Smart. Funny. Self evasive. Another complete story in 140 characters.”

Samantha’s entry was very close to snatching second place. She wins 40 Minutes Free wi-fi access which she can use anywhere in South Africa. Great Work Samantha!

Runners Up:

These were entries which were contending with the three winners and made some great efforts which put them onto the list…

@takilla786: Innocent window washes, innocent sells, innocent begs, innocent smells.Innocent pleas, innocent harps,all so that Innocent Jnr never starves
@blacktiemedia: Thembi stood contrasted against the sky of hungry fire. Smoke filled her lungs, blood stained her clothes. “Ubuntu” she whispered tearfully.
@nicharry: We’ve lost our ubuntu. 14 years gone and we are too scared to stand for our countrymen. Instead we fall for anyone carrying a knife or a gun.
@Sznq: He said: 1.Like it or 2.Hamba Kahle.When he wasn’t looking,she left.Now why can’t he buy her back ? Such bitter sweet things,ultimatums.
@qudsiya: One day she clicked on his nick and typed “hi”. A year later, she shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you.” On 19/01/07 she said, “I do.”
@ismaild: its dark and she misses him, hears a sound in the kitchen! “WTF? Should she check? slowly tiptoes, damn those skelm tokoloshe with munchies
@shaunoakes: ! I said “Fok, Chyna” said a frustrated God, after another misunderstanding with an apologetic Mother Nature. “Now look what you’ve done!”

The competition overall showed the great variety of experience and expression in our great nation. Different stories, varied perspectives, emotion and intellectualism all in 140 characters. A tremendous example of creativity :) I was humbled at the outstanding creativity in each entry and I know for a fact that it made the judges’ jobs all the more harder to choose the overall winners.

Last Word from the Judges:
Saaleha Bamjee-Mayet – “Such stellar entries made the judging process really difficult. To facilitate the process, I tried to look for the most complete story in a twitter format, ones that gave a sense of a beginning, middle and end. SA twitterers have a wicked way with words, and I hated to let some really poetic entries go.”

Mandy de Waal – “For me the biggest skill in the short form is not only the concise concept and the writing, but the re-writing. The ability to shave off everything that’s not necessary, leaving only the bare bones of the story. Short form is essentially fiction that tells a story in anything from five thousand words to a couple of paragraphs. Imagine then how ruthless one must be with Twiction, which surely must be the shortest form of fiction ever written.”

Eve Dmochowska – “Overall, I think that the entries were fabulous, creative, inspired and mostly a whole lot of fun. And It was wonderful to see so many entries .. it shows that the twitter community is quite a cohesive one in this country. Well done to all the entrants!”

Winners, please contact me to collect your prizes :)

Till the next competition, Keep Tweeting!

: Twitter Story Competition, South Africa, Winners

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0, Writing

Marketing Guru, Joe Jaffe takes on brands who abuse Social Media for marketing purposes.

Speaking at the Association of National Advertisers’ Integrated Marketing Conference, Joe Jaffe calls out five brands for abusing or not taking advantage of the increasingly social nature of media or, to paraphrase his new book, Not Joining the Conversation. From Sony’s fake PSP blog to the fight between T-Mobile and Engadget over the color Magenta to Target’s refusal to engage with a blogger who took issue with one of the brand’s billboards which showed a woman on Target’s target. Link

: Joe Jaffe, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0, Brands

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0

Welcome to the South African Twitter Story Competition!

Here’s how it works…

1) You need to write a story that’s exactly 140 characters long.
2) Being that it is South African, you need to include at least one word from any of the 11 official languages excluding, ofcourse, English.
3) Post a link to your story tweet in the comments section of this blog post. (You have to post a comment with the link because if you just replied on twitter “@mkarim” it wouldn’t be 140 characters :P)

Example: “Who took my bloody biltong?” Oom Jan shouted at no one in particular, knowing for sure those bloody monkeys had invaded his home yet again. Twitter Link

The stories submitted will be judged by a panel of seasoned South African writers/bloggers

The Judges
Saaleha Bamjee-Mayet – Blogger, Writer and Journalist
Mandy de Waal – columnist, writer for hire and freelance journalist.
Eve Dmochowska – Writer, Blogger and Web Strategist.

The Prizes

1st Prize: Up for grabs is a SpringLeap T-shirt proudly sponsored by the guys at Springleap.com – Check out their site for awesomely designed T-shirts by some of South Africa’s Brightest Designers :)

2nd Prize: A $20 Amazon Voucher from Qatarliving.com the biggest social networking site in Qatar and owned by a South African Startup!

This should help with shipping costs now that Amazon has Banned the SA Post Office for theivery and fraud *sigh*

3rd Prize: The winner gets a 40 minute free wi-fi access voucher from Telkom Business which will allow access at any wi-fi hotspot in the country.

The competition was to end on 21st June 2008 at midnight, but has been extended to Thursday, 26th June 2008. All submissions after this time will not be considered.

COMPETITION OFFICIALLY CLOSED… WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON :)
: Competition, Twitter, Social Media, Web 2.0

written by Muhammad \\ tags: Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0