Instantly Obsolete

How can I drive the performance car I’ve always wanted, but still live my politics? Tesla, perhaps. Frankly, this 918 Spyder, aka. the “Eco-SuperPorsche” looks like it might really hit the spot.

The only point of compromise would be the $630,000 price tag.

Throughout my career I’ve consistently hit my head against what seems to be the impenetrable wall of the big media brokers – agencies whose bread and butter come from selling highly commoditized advertising inventory. Their practices (and attitudes) can be stifling to more innovative and creative ideas.

However, I’ve begun to witness a shift in the conversation (and attitude). Much of this shift is due to the growing importance of earned media as a channel in the digital landscape. Impacting this channel requires the ability to navigate the complexities of editorial influence outside of the mass media and shaping conversations in the social graph. And, while you can seed this, you can’t buy it wholesale.

This condition is forcing the media buying companies to reexamine their practices and look to recast the relationship with their clients from transactional, to that of consultant. Easier said then done, me thinks.

On a side note, the video is from Think with Google – Business in Bites. It’s a nice program that features very, very short, yet often insightful clips from business leaders all across wide breadth of industries. You can sort videos by theme, industry, company or individual.

In our line of work we spend a whole lot of time discussing and celebrating the “big” innovations – the disruptive technologies and cultural game changers that the likes of Google and Apple appear to roll out daily.

However, we shouldn’t overlook the seemingly smaller innovations that could have a huge cumulative impact on our future.

Here’s one with some promise.

The 98 Pen. Developed by DBA, a New York-based product design company. It’s “the only 98% biodegradable pen in the world”, made from a potato-based plastic, filled ecological-safe ink AND produced at a wind-powered facility to boot.

Only in New York.

On Wednesday night I hopped out of a cab on 10th Avenue and passed through a series of traffic barricades and found myself among a massive throng of people packed onto Little West 12th Street. Everyone was staring up at the Southern facing side of the The Standard Hotel in the Manhattan’s burgeoning Meatpacking District.

Symphonic dance music blared, as pulsing colors illumined 170 rooms of the hotel. The rooms were occupied with over 60 dancers, executing a carefully choreographed fashion show to visual program designed by Daft Punk’s lighting designers.

My jaw dropped, and this sometime jaded marketer joined the masses, giggling with delight at the awe-inspiring public event for the retail giant, Target.

Conceived by the crew at Mother New York, the event was streamed live (and lives on) at a custom Facebook app created for the event. Note: the show begins a little over half way into the videos.

Later that evening, as I marveled the beauty of the Highline Elevated Park from The Standard’s roof top bar, I couldn’t stop thinking about one of the best branded events I’d ever witnessed.

Hats off.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a little while now, so perhaps you’ve already heard about OpenIDEO, the latest venture from the global design innovation firm, IDEO.

It’s a compelling and ambitious endeavor, in which IDEO uses their own design process, and deep network, to facilitate crowdsourced solutions for some of the most pressing issues facing our world.

The platform is built around sponsored challenges (or “big questions”) for which participants (any and all “creative thinkers”) can post inspirational material to spur thinking and discussion.

From there it moves into a concepting phase, where participates can collaborate and build on the ideas of others (a key tenet in IDEO). Then of course the community evaluates the ideas and a winner emerges. That winning idea is then available for development by the challenge’s sponsor.

I really appreciate the altruistic sentiments, and I certainly hope OpenIDEO is a huge success.

One of the more experimental, and questionable, aspects of the program is the introduction of the Design Quotient (or “DQ”) rating for individual contributors. The idea is that you build up your DQ rating based on the amount of input across the development process. This then can then be shared out to social networks as a badge of honor, or cultural capital.

Genius? Contrived? Or both?

Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness*. “Time” has ceased, “space” has vanished. We now live in a global village…a simultaneous happening. We are back in acoustic space. We have begun again to structure the primordial feeling, the tribal emotions from which a few centuries of literacy divorced us.

We have to shift our stress of attention from action to reaction. We must now know in advance the consequences of any policy or action, since the results are experienced without delay. Because with electronic speed, we can no longer wait and see.

—

Prolific words about the state of our digital world from media analysts Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore in 1967 – taken from The Medium is the Massage. Yes, “the massage”, as in Swedish body manipulation.

I never tire of reviewing this book and seeing just how relevant the concepts still are 43  years (and counting) later.

* McLuhan’s term for the cultural condition leading to the global village, wherein mass communication allows geographically separated communities to experience events and receive knowledge in unison.

When it comes to advertising content, there’s so much out there, that art of making something great is now merely tables stakes.

The science of getting it noticed and tapping into that often elusive “viral feedback loop” is still a bit of a dark art for many advertisers.

The good news is that the likes of BuzzFeed, StumbleUpon, Digg and Twitter have created platforms for this express purpose. And, with some help navigating them, cracking the code of a “hit” is getting more predictable.

Read more about The Science of Sharing in Mr. Morrissey’s latest offering in AdWeek.

Sweetener: It’s a quick read and includes a nice mention of Odopod’s recent project LadyData.

I don’t have much time for TV these days. But, I do have a few shows I like to keep tabs on. One of those, somewhat predictably, is ‘Mad Men’.

Like many I record the show and watch it when convenient. And, like the some 50-70% of DVR owners, I happily speed through the commercial blocks searching for the first signs of my program and quickly hit play.

A few days ago, while watching the second episode of Med Men I inadvertently hit play on the Dove advertisement above, thinking my program had resumed.

While I quickly realized it was an ad (or branded vignette), I watched it through and smiled at the cunning.

Indeed, a crafty team at Mindshare and Ogilvy had busted my ad-skipping behavior with a simple, yet powerful idea – create custom branded content that looks like the content the audience is currently watching.

Yes, you could call it a bit “tricky” or deceptive, but it’s also novel and well done. I’d have to guess pretty darn effective too. It got me – and frankly, I was far more more impressed then annoyed by it. I might even stop again and watch the next “episode”.

Read about the details on the intuitive in this NYT article.

My latest post on the Odoblog.

Complexity requires fierce collaborators
The complexities of working with global brands in the digital landscape require Odopod to be a deeply collaborative company. We are often one partner in a large ecosystem of other agencies and internal teams, all servicing different aspects of our clients marketing and communication needs. For this reason, we have embraced our role as collaborator and strive to forge formidable partnerships.

Knowing our role in these loose confederates is paramount. Too frequently, overreaching agencies debate their area of ownership and jostle for the client’s favor, which can be a recipe for dysfunction and subpar work.

I’ve found that effective ecosystems surrounding a brand must demonstrate the attributes of any productive and successful team – specifically; mutual trust, mutual respect, complete communication as well as a shared purpose and vision.

Beyond merely accepting the idea of collaboration, the larger team must invite it. Desire it. Even, when required, fight for it.

The case of the three-headed hydra hero
Consider our work for DonQ, a family owned and operated rum brand from Puerto Rico reentering the U.S. market after nearly 20 years. Undercurrent, DonQ’s NY-based strategy firm lead an agency selection and brought us to the table.

From our earliest meetings Undercurrent and Odopod openly discussed how responsibilities between our agencies as well as the client’s marketing and sales teams would be divided. And, in some cases, shared. It was an open and candid dialogue that required situational leadership as well as a healthy dose of good faith.

This multi-party situation had a lot moving parts and could have easily deteriorated into numerous flavors of dysfunction. However, what ensued was an exemplary collaboration that’s garnered phenomenal results for everyone.

Here are some of the things that went right (and good guidelines for any collaboration):

Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook has launched a site to celebrate reaching 500 million (half a billion) active users. This probably would have happened sooner if it weren’t for that rash of disgruntled users committing virtual suicides.

Some projections have the social media giant hitting One billion by 2012.

Regardless, the current milestone is staggering. In fact, if Facebook were a country it would rank number three in population.

For me, this massive community begs a question: In our post-digital world, what truly unites us as people?

Nationality? Cultural heritage? Religion? Values? Affiliations? Attitudes? Behaviors?