Grounded In Reality

Late last week, Paul Walker spoke to the New York office about crowdsourcing and the general open source mentality that is further perpetuating itself in marketing communications, interpersonal communication and technology development. I got a chance earlier in the same week to witness a unique model of the “open source philosophy” in action.

On February 12, I attended a Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York City hosted by Pat Coyle, Executive Director of Business for the Indianapolis Colts. The concept of a sports marketing summit itself is not unique. How it came together, though, is distinctly “2.0.” Nearly 60 communications and technology professionals met in Manhattan, many of them for the first time. Most had come to know Pat through his blog at PatCoyle.net which discusses issues in sports marketing now that “fans are in charge.” Pat also created his own companion social network at Sportsmarketing20.com using a platform from Ning.

Over the course of a half day, there were panel discussions on measurement, engagement, communication and socializing that included representatives from a host of technology, sports and marketing entities from Rick Wolf (Business Development, RotoWorld/NBC) to Takkle.com CEO David Birnbaum to Hooman Radfar, founder of widget giant Clearspring Technologies. Conference attendees included ad agencies, companies developing social networking platforms and technologies, email marketers, as well as representatives from individual teams (New York Jets, Washington Redskins) and leagues (NBA, NFL).

Overall, it was a great learning experience and more (albeit unnecessary) evidence that the environment for marketers has changed. Many discussions centered on how to engage consumers online, how to measure engagement, how corporate sponsors can integrate content and monetize their online efforts and ways we’re interacting with certain technologies. A solid summary is offered by event attendee Brian Litvack from wRECK Sports here.

Below are a few other interesting examples of engagement referenced during the course of the day. I’ve got a complete list of attendees and would be happy to further discuss with anyone interested.

Dunder Mifflin Infinity: virtual home for fans of NBC’s “The Office”

Takkle.com: bringing the challenge concept to life with high school athletes

NBA.com Suns: an NBA franchise offers fans a peek inside the locker room

MyColts.net: Online community for Indianapolis Colts fans

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Steve Bonsignore
GCI Sports

I had the opportunity to attend Nielsen Buzzmetrics’ Consumer-Generated Media Summit today in NYC. Pete Blackshaw kicked things off with a great discussion about how much the digital media landscape has evolved over the past year. Key points:

• Word of Mouth remains the most trusted source of influence for consumers who are making purchasing decisions.
• Search continues to have a huge impact on corporate reputation. Influential communities like Wikipedia are “credibility brokers” for companies.
• Consumer-generated video and audio is exploding, largely due to simple editing, publishing, and storage services. Nielsen refers to this as consumer-generated multimedia, or “CGM2.”
• Consumers are increasingly dictating how branded content lives (or dies) online. Nielsen calls this “Consumer Fortified Media.” Fancy term aside, it means that online marketing initiatives aren’t completed until consumers inject their POV via comments and other methods. In other words, consumers “finish the story” by evaluating and amplifying content that marketers produce (e.g. embracing, DIGGing, spoofing, protesting). This reinforces the fact that marketers no longer have complete control of their messages. The Web has created a flat playing field.
• The “wave of consumer emulation” has arrived. More than ever, brands are mirroring how consumers communicate and act. Look no further than the Presidential candidates who are using Web 2.0 to the max: Add the Fred08 widget to your page! Follow John Edwards on Twitter! Get text messages from Hillary! The takeaway: Brands are benefiting by communicating and acting just like consumers. The warning: Consumers spot imitation and exploitation instantly. Authentic messaging remains critical.

The Summit continued with a series of excellent breakout sessions covering healthcare buzz, media & entertainment, advertising & engagement, and defensive branding. There were great insights from attendees, although we’re prohibited from blogging the deets (Nielsen request).

More at Peter Kim’s blog.

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By: Andrew Foote
GCI Group - NY

Over the past week, Dell has been the topic of many conversations in the blogosphere, spurred by a Forrester Groundswell Award and BusinessWeek article discussing the company’s transformation from digital bystander to leader.  In reading these posts, I am incredibly proud of the GCI team that helped make this happen. (NOTE: Dell is a GCI client)

Below are a few highlights from the blogosphere:

• BusinessWeek: Dell Learns to Listen: Jeff Jarvis takes a guest columnist role to discuss his two-year relationship with Dell and an overview of Dell’s social media initiatives. The online version is complete with a 25-minute video of an interview with Michael Dell (also available on Jeff’s blog: BuzzMachine).   He also posted the un-edited version, which notes a very measurable impact of Dell’s programs:

“Thanks to this new relationship, the company learns about issues online before they do in the press or sometimes in-house. They are stanching the flow of bad buzz. By their measure, negative word of mouth in blogs has dropped from 49 to 22 percent. And my Dell Hell posts, which used to come up third on a Google search for the company, are now relegated to second-page search-engine Siberia. ‘That change in perception just doesn’t happen with a press release,’ Menchaca says.”

• Direct2Dell - Dell’s Blog: Lionel Manchaca did an interview with Jeff near the end of the day and posted the vlog that resulted on Direct2Dell.

• Forrester’s Groundswell blog also mentions Dell’s transformation when referencing the Forrester Groundswell Awards that were given out last week.

Company transformation. Dell.
We created this new category to capture the powerful changes happening across all functions at Dell. The Dell Customer Advocate program, which pursues fast resolution of support problems, decreased the negative share of online comments about Dell by 25%. Direct2Dell, Dell’s frank and informative blog, generates 3.5 million page views per month. Ideastorm, Dell’s innovation community, tallied 500,000 votes for over 7,000 ideas and generated a new product, Dell PC’s with Linux pre-installed. And Employee Storm, an internal idea community, has generated 2,700 ideas and seen visits from 22% of Dell’s employees.

• From Geoff Livingston at The Buzz Bin:

Relationships and RELATIONS are about being human — not God. Together as humans we experience life and grow together. Mistakes happen, and good PR can overcome this. Consider Dell’s incredible lesson in admitting wrongs, listening and changing. This week’s BusinessWeek story is a celebration of relations.

• Our own Paul Walker mentioned that he is “really proud of the people and programs mentioned in the article. Thanks, Dell, for letting us be a part of it.” 

On behalf of GCI, I want to give the entire team a big pat on the back! The consistent creativity and innovation in new media waters is something to be extremely proud of.

Watch for a refresh of StarWars.com tomorrow when Lucasfilm releases 250 clips from the six “Star Wars” movies for fans to mash up.  (Yes, this means that you’ll finally fulfill your wish of terminating Jar Jar.)

Given his reputation for protecting his intellectual property, embracing consumer-generated content is a big step forward for George Lucas—he previously sued a Maryland company for making “Star Wars”-like light sabers and sued rapper Dr. Dre for using the audio boom at the start of the “Star Wars” films in his album “2001.”

This is a perfect birthday gift for fans as the “Star Wars” saga turns 30 this year.  Additionally, StarWars.com will host and aggregate hundreds of videos—some previously unreleased and some already on fan sites such as AtomFilms.com—as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations.

Goodwill to the “Star Wars” fan base aside, this is yet another brilliant marketing move by Lucasfilm to breathe new life into the “Star Wars” brand and make it relevant to the next generation.

ps: The rumor mill has it that Lucas is thinking of a new “Star Wars” movie, set at the time of the Old Republic, when the Jedi regained control of the galaxy from the Sith Lords.  I hope he doesn’t direct it.

I’m a Heroes fan and, in my recent talks with students, have cited NBC’s embrace of digital media as a prime example of traditional media “exposing” itself by providing a 360-experience that taps into the fan network.  What’s neat about Heroes?

• Heroes Rewind: Free, full online videos available five hours after broadcast; entire season is posted online for free (ad free!)
• Commentary: Full-length cast commentary for each episode
• Novels: Online graphic novel (PDF and Flash) that runs concurrent with the broadcast; new characters are introduced and plot lines intertwined and enriched
• Blogs by director Greg Beaman and most the popular character, Hiro (each post gets hundreds of comments, not bad for a fictitious blog)
• Wiki that captures episode guides, mythology, art, trivia, predictions and speculations, etc.
• Theories: User submitted videos about what happens next in the storyline; available as a widget.  (Top Five Theories)
• On the go: Heroes on your mobile device

Kudos to NBC for generating this rich, engaging content.  As it matures, I trust that the layout and navigation will get cleaner and slicker.  I’m eager to see and learn from the upcoming NBC Social Network.

As one that used to work in a newsroom, the old saying that, “Bad news is good news for us” makes me a bit ill, but it’s true. Problem these days in the 5-second news cycle is that newsrooms aren’t the only places to get information these days. If you go to YouTube and search Virginia Tech Shootings there are a few videos already up and more to follow.  Technorati says that there are over 15,000 blog posts from the incident and there are 444 tags out there on it including videos and photos.  If you have turned on your TV for five seconds in the last day, you couldn’t have missed it … never mind the fact that every famous news person from around the globe made it to tiny Blacksburg ASAP.  Make time to surf the web for 15 minutes and check out what’s going on … Facebook and MySpace I am sure are going to be lit up with this topic over the next few weeks as well.  And when you get home, I know it’s rare to take a second to be thankful for what we have, but stop and think about it. I was numb to all of it in my newsroom days, but these days I say often, “But for the grace of God go I.”  Here’s wishing for no more days like yesterday and that a wonderful college town gets back to where it was.