POST DIGITAL

ON: Nike's The Second Coming Mashup

For a marketing trend to be legit, Nike jumps on board and makes it legit, letting everybody else make mistakes before it swoops in with its gigantor marketing team and victorious hear-me-roar worldview.

To illustrate, they improved on Dove's decent but docile Real Beauty campaign, not just representing imperfections but embracing them with manic ferocity, even writing little manifestos about the merits of thunder thighs - which would be crazy-lame if done by anybody else but Nike.

So it's apt that they call their take on consumer-generated ads "The Second Coming”.
And instead of begging for whatever you can pull out of your tushi  (a method yielding only ironic or lackluster <http://tinyurl.com/lvok7> results), they've wrapped an iron fist around the potential outcomes.

With footage featuring all-stars like Bryant, LeBron and Nash, users can manipulate the order of the clips and choose a version of a hand-picked theme song, The Second Coming by Juelz Santana and Just Blaze.

Stringent much? Hell yes. Nike's careful about the brand appropriation beast. While such controls get frowns from zealous consumer-is-king marketers, the swoosh goddess didn't become an ideology powerhouse for nothing.

Users can download their mash-ups or disseminate them on mobile phones.
No promises of ad spots here. This is less a consumer-generated ad thing and more an interactivity-with-the-brand thing. And these days, we like that somebody has the discipline to hold fast to their position.

Visit this site - http://www.nikemashup.com/

ON: The Susan G. Komen Site

This site just gets it right on so many levels. From interaction to swift loading animations to the carousel of video testimonials made this site a delight.

Visit the Susan G. Komen website by clicking here

ON: Gliffy a Visio Alternative

I came across this well thought out, on-line diagramming tool.  It allows you to chart out UML, flowcharts, networking, floorplans, etc.  One cool feature is that the diagrams you create can be saved online in a free account. 

You have to wonder how long this will be free as some of these can beginning to build terobytes of data for the company Gliffy.  I thought the publishing capabilities to the web, printed or output to SVG, JPEG or PNG formats all done in Flash 7.

Visit http://www.gliffy.com to see this great application

ON: RGA - Defining An Indusrty

Here is a shout out to all my colleagues who put their love, passion, blood, sweat and tears in to an organization that has changed the way interactive media is developed and seen by brand mavens.

Congrats to R/GA as the recipient of Adweek’s Interactice Agency of the Year award. 
For the last years it has been busy revolutionizing the way an agency services and creates for the interactive discpline.  This year was HOT for them and with the success they brought to clients like Nike (Nike+ Web System and Nike.com) and Verizon (Beatbox Mixer). 

Congrats to Bob, Anne, Kris and John for delivering experiences that we all hope to grow up and create.

ON: Backstage at Accenture

From the depth of stogy emerges an interface that uses the most intelligent interface that I have seen in a long time. 

For the first time in a long time Accenture has stepped up to the plate to deliver their best qualities...their consultants and their culture of innovation. 

See Backstage at Accenture by clicking here

ON: Moto Colors

Fun introduction, vivid colors with photo realistic graphic presentations of the products opens he MOTO colors website.  The biggest disconnect in the entire experience was that I had to pop off to another site to specific types of phones. This edgy artfully designed site could have handled the Motorola direct business objective with in this interface.

Click here to experience a MOTO's mellow feel.

ON: Mobile Start Ups

Today I was working on my plans on how we (TracyLocke Digital) will approach the mobile space from a activation and brand promotions approach.   I have been bombarded by new information on start ups.  Below I have developed a list of the companies that are hot and have forward movement in the Mobile 2.0 space.  There's definitely a lot of movement around on the mobile start-up front. Besides Yahoo with Flickr and Google with YouTube going mobile, there are some very interesting start-up companies going mobile.

Many of these companies are building easy-to-use mobile web apps and services that work cross platform.  If you have a mobile tech company that you think that interactive marketers can use as a brand activation platform add you name to the list by dropping me a comment.

• BluePulse
• Cellfire
• ComVu
• Funambol
• Gizmo
• Loopt
• JuiceCaster
• Mobo
• Mystrands
• Plazes
• Plusmo
• Sharpcast
• SlingMedia
• Shozu
• SoonR
• TalkPlus
• Widsets
• Winksite

ON: Converse Russia

One of the longest load times I have waited for in a while on a broadband connection. Once the 2 minute wait was over I enjoyed the organic navigation, floating screen and the youthful design.  I did not need to know Russian to navigate the site.  it was natural.

ON: Super Bowl Commercials Live Second Life Online

More than 50 commercials appeared during Super Bowl XL on Sunday, but instead of vanishing into the ether as they once did, many have already found a "second life" online, writes the New York Times (via MarketingVox). This year, many have been officially made available through streaming video online - for watching, forwarding, adding to personal web pages, and even downloading to video iPods. And the post-game ad buzz is taking the hurt off the estimated $2.5 million price tag for each 30-second ad.

Among those that have put up videos of Super Bowl commercials are AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo and ifilm.com, as well as sites run by the National Football League and media outlets such as ESPN, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.

The websites of Super Bowl advertisers such as FedEx, Ford, the Bud Light and Budweiser brands, and GM's Cadillac and Hummer brands, have posted ads - and some have created microsites for the commercials.

Intelliseek chief marketing officer Pete Blackshaw is quoted as saying the microsites are the equivalent of using TiVo. "It's about consuming advertising at your own pace, and the microsites are almost like portals for watching ads.

ON: Free Games

I have pondered the other side of a blog I wrote this past summer about our evolution to the next wave of in-game advertising as a marketing mediums. In the post below I tackle the unpaid content issue... but when there are a mass of ads should the content be free?  See post below. 

As an internet executive who has been around long enough to see the ups and downs of internet business including “dot bomb” and the stock market plunge of agencies and stuck with it to see the rebirth of the internet in Web 2.0, I ask my Web 2.0 marketing and business posse this…Have we not learned anything from Web 1.0?

If we are truly a learning environment filled with Wikis, social networking and smarter spending habits, why are we not leveraging consumer buying power to its fullest?

In Web 1.0, companies failed because they were not fiscally responsible and they continuously gave away products, services and their audiences for free, even though consumers were willing to pay. It just did not work.

In Web 1.0, we found that there could not be free services, no free drives and more importantly no free entertainment. What makes interactive “professionals” of the Web 2.0 revolution think that free video can exist without advertising?

Has someone found a business model that allows companies to barter our products and services and then barter with the Internet service providers and electric company to keep our services running?

I want to begin seeing video sites that leverage distribution models that actually generate dollars for advertisers creating the content and publishers selling the space where the content and consumers are living.

I think we can all glean learnings from the mobile marketing space. The mobile marketing industry is making money! They charge nominal fees to consumers to access branded ring tones, videos and music, therefore making a viable business.

If you are going to offer free content, consumers are willing to sit though 10 seconds of ads to get what they want. Just as they have in the early days of radio, television and the current iterations of music sites, consumers will wait and get great entertainment at the nominal cost of their time. Consumers have shown us time and time again that if the content is good, relevant or worthy of distribution they will pay for it in an “on demand” model. Can you imagine getting an on demand video service without out a subscription to a local cable company? (I think that is referred to as Cable piracy)

While it is not the only way, it is a sure fire way to keep the lights on and employees fed. What I predict is a quick evolution from Web 2.0 to Web 2.0. 1.21, which will help agencies define the Pre-roll space, feed the starving creative mavens producing video content for the web and more importantly separate the girls from the women in this market place.

What are your thoughts???

Like HBO or Showtime we pay for an un altered true game experience without the muck up of advertising.   Now that marketers (including myself) are punching up the ads in our online and console games, why are we paying for that entertainment?  No ads... full price.   XBOX live with Pre-roll and ads should be free...

What are your thoughts on the topic?