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How to turn off Facebook Places

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 20 2010

This is a great article that clearly defines how to manage Facebook Places, a solid read for anyone who uses the platform.

It has come from MacLife and Florence Ion, but I thought I would post the entire article.

How To Turn Off Facebook Places | Mac|Life

Facebook Places has us a little bit paranoid. After all, the idea of our friends checking us in at the yogurt shop isn’t something that we want leaking out. We’re yogurt fanatics and we wouldn’t want the word to get out to our friends and loved ones. So, if you’re wondering how to turn off Facebook Places and keep your friends from outing your addiction to frozen treats, read on.

Restrict access in “Things I share”

Under the Privacy settings, go to Custom and “Customise settings.” This will take you to the page that will allow you to select what other friends can see. We set this to “Friends Only,” but you might be okay with letting “Friends of Friends” know where you are.


Keep others from mentioning you under “Things others share”



Keep your friends from being able to check you in with them by
disabling “Friends can check me in to places.” Your friends might be
annoyed with your decision, but remember this it is your privacy. You
can still be tagged in status updates, however.

Change the settings under “Applications and website”

This one is tricky and took us a few clicks to find. Scroll to the
bottom of the privacy page, and under “Applications and websites,” edit
“Info accessible to your friends” so that “Current location” and “Places
I’ve visited” are not checked off. This will ensure that your
information is not shared with any of the applications, games and
websites that you and your friends might use.

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Facebook places

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 18 2010

Facebook just announced Location Based Services integration, with Facebook Places. This is required viewing for any marketer or agency professional, or just about any entrepreneur. But from a marketing perspective this is going to require those who are looking at retail, ooh, POS or any environmental marketing to consider the social media, mobile and digital impact of what they do.

From a user perspective now you can not only provide your status update but incorporate the location, context and ideally the people around you.

But this is very significant for our business, while LBS isn’t new (its been around for years – the wireless company I started was one of the first to create Location Based Services – 1999), this is the first time its available at scale.  While Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and others have been in place the scale has never really been there. Now that Facebook has integrated LBS into its platform 500m+ people have access to this tool’s capability and over 150m people using Facebook mobile can begin to be using it directly. Users can now share where they are, see which friends are in the local area, and discover new places by following where others from their social network have checked in.

Some interesting things to think about:

  • Retail, POS, OOH, Experiential have a new requirement and that is mobile and the digital/social experience.  How do you want your audiences to engage with your experience on the mobile platform while they are there and what will they be talking about?
  • How will you reward customer loyalty? Provide customers a reason to keep coming back and “checking in” to places, as well as share that with their networks
  • Places will be a wonderful tool for promoting business and experiential marketing as well as providing special offers.
  • APIs and data of facebook places will be a great resource for applications, start thinking about how to leverage this resource of information – Marketers should be thinking about this as well as entrepreneurs.

There is a Facebook Places FAQ for Advertisers here http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=places#!/help/?page=1159

As well as a user guide for Facebook places here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=places

Watch live streaming video from facebookinnovations at livestream.com
And here is the blog post: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=418175202130

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The Republic of Facebook

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Jul 30 2010

Integrating creative, social and production to deliver true sales results – Old Spice

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Jul 28 2010

If you haven’t had a chance to see the amazing Old Spice Campaign by Weiden and Kennedy look anywhere on the internet and you will find it. The campaign, which did include the usual print, tv and other traditional media, really built its buzz around digital and social media.  It wasn’t just the creative idea which was brilliant, it was really the execution, production, distribution, and ultimately the ability to create and deploy almost real time high-quality content efficiently and I am sure cost effectively that makes it so amazing.

The campaign, staring the spokesman Isaiah Mustafa, a former football player, now turned smooth talking spokesman, responded to over 186 social media comments with funny videos including responding to Demi Moore and Alyssa Millano, as well as this one to George Stephanopoulous:

Re: @GStephanopoulos | Old Spice

and the entire campaign had over 40 million views of the responses, 94 million views of the youtube channel and over 120k subscribers.

The most important part of this entire campaign is this paragraph burried deep in this article:

According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice body-wash products are up 11 percent in the last 12 months; up 27 percent in the last six months; up 55 percent in the last three months; and in the last month, with two new TV spots and the online response videos, up a whopping 107 percent. “Our business is on fire,” Moorhead says. “We’ve seen strong results over all of our portfolio. That is the reward for the great work.” (See also: “OId Spice Campaign Smells Like a Sales Success, Too.”)

Spice It Up

Spice It Up
The Old Spice campaign has certainly garnered attention, but did it work?

July 26, 2010

- Eleftheria Parpis

Isaiah Mustafa, the buff, bare-chested Old Spice guy in the shower, may be the man of the moment. But it was Bruce Campbell, the B-list cult movie actor, whose droll humor introduced the world to the 73-year-old Procter & Gamble brand’s cheeky new attitude in Wieden + Kennedy’s “Experience is everything” campaign back in 2007.

Rather than throw out all the old, Wieden embraced the heritage of the brand, including its seafaring theme, but gave it an ironic twist to repackage it for the modern young man who might remember Dad’s cologne and appreciates a satirical take on that ancient history. The Portland, Ore., agency, which won creative and media duties on the brand in 2006, kept the cursive script logo, the clipper ship from the fragrance bottle and the whistle from the jingle.

Campbell was the first of many Old Spice men. Tony Stewart did “Armpit Marketing.” Will Farrell sported Old Spice in a 12-spot series as his Jackie Moon character in a cross-promotion with the movie Semi-Pro. As a former TV doctor, Neil Patrick Harris recommended Pro-Strength antiperspirant. And LL Cool J found his cool with Old Spice Swagger.

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Google opens the door of mobile to the masses and pushes their platform

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Jul 12 2010

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/


Google is opening up the mobile platform to the masses by providing a set of tools that lets give everyone from six graders to lit majors tools for building mobile applications and being able to launch them on the Android platform.  Using a GUI the application lets anyone build applications without the need for a PHD in C++ or an engineering team of HTML 5 developers.  The application system also allows users to create “disposable” applications, simple solutions that fit an immediate need, can be built quickly, launched on the mobile device, used for a few hours and then disposed of.

Not only is this a direct shot at Apple, which is known as a walled garden on the application and content to their iOS4, but it continues to position the mobile device as a fully functioning consumption and creation device.

I am looking forward to seeing the new content available, the new marketing opportunities that become viable and the continued success of this mobile,  personal, portable and highly targeted platform

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Apple iAd debuts on July 1

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Jun 09 2010

With over $60 million in commitments?!? wow
Apple to Debut iAds on July 1

Apple to Debut iAds on July 1
Over $60 Million in 2010 Commitments from Leading Global Brands

SAN FRANCISCO—June 7, 2010—Apple® today announced it will debut its iAd mobile advertising network on July 1 on iPhone® and iPod touch® devices running its iOS 4 software platform. iAds combine the emotion of TV advertising with the interactivity of Internet advertising, giving advertisers a dynamic and powerful new way to bring motion and emotion to mobile users. iAd will kick off with mobile ad campaigns from leading global brands including AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup Company, Chanel, Citi, DirecTV, GEICO, GE, JCPenney, Liberty Mutual Group, Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, Turner Broadcasting System, Unilever and The Walt Disney Studios. Apple has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling over $60 million, which represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010.*

“iAd offers advertisers the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web, and offers users a new way to explore ads without being hijacked out of their favorite apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iAds will reach millions of iPhone and iPod touch users—a highly desirable demographic for advertisers—and provide developers a new way to earn money so they can continue developing free and low cost applications.”

“iAd will allow Citi to reach millions of people on their iPhone and iPod touch,” said Lisa Caputo, executive vice president and CMO, Citigroup. “iAd gives us a remarkable level of creativity for creating ads to connect with our current and future customers in a more interactive style than ever before.”

“iAd is going to revolutionize mobile advertising,” said Rob Master, North American media director, Unilever. “With iAd, we’ve been able to create some of our most powerful and compelling ads ever. iAd is the perfect mobile format to reach and engage with our customers.”

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GE is Crowdsourcing their next campaign

0 Comments | This entry was posted on May 25 2010

Congratulations to Judy Hu, Linda Boff and all of GE for taking this big risk.  They reached out to the community and asked the consumer to not only participate, but create the next campaign for the brand. What a wonderful way to create brand advocates and brand loyalty, it also takes such a huge brand and connects it directly to consumers (where it has typically been a very B2B business).

This is not only a very forward thinking move by GE Marketing, but it is also a true justification that real brands are looking at the crowdsourced model as a potentially viable way for sourcing creative ideas. . .

The proof will be in the execution. . .

Btw if you read here it says that the program is open to advertising industry professionals or startups as a way to win GE’s business. . .

GE + YOU = AWESOME – Google Moderator

GE + YOU = AWESOME
Let’s face it – when large companies enter the digital space, they are not always met with the warmest reception. (Translation: they tend to blunder in, mess it up, and get torn a new one.)

To make sure GE continues to succeed in new media, we’re going straight to the experts – you.

We want your best ideas for how to engage an online audience. Got a great idea for an ad campaign? A creative concept for a killer contest? A truly innovative social media program? With your help, we can avoid the lame and embrace the awesome.

Enter your suggestions for the next great new media initiative in the space below, or email us directly at ad.ideas@ge.com.

Before you post, please take a quick look at our submission guidelines at http://www.ge.com/adideas_terms/.

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Google Tv Just announced

0 Comments | This entry was posted on May 20 2010

The TV screen is the best screen for watching Video. . . most curious about the boxes that are going to be needed to execute.  But all in all I believe that the opportunity here isn’t about the on-demand HD lean back video experience, its about delivering more IP enabled media, targeted, focused, data driven and built on ROI. I would say “TV just got interesting” but I think we will wait and see.  I do love the idea of using Real-Time Bidding across multiple channels (Display, Video-youtube, Search, and now TV) to deliver the right ad at the right time to the right user for the right price.

This won’t be fun for the big media companies when true supply and demand for audiences dictate the price of premium television advertising on programming. . .

Google TV turns on at I/O — Engadget

Home Entertainment, HD Industry, HD Set Tops
Google TV turns on at I/O
By Nilay Patel posted May 20th 2010 12:23PM
Breaking News
As expected, Google just announced Google TV at I/O. There’s four billion TV viewers worldwide, making it the biggest market in the world, and Google’s after it in a big way — it’s a $70 billion ad market in the US alone, after all. According to Google, “video should be consumed on the biggest, best, and brightest screen in your house, and that’s the TV.” The idea is to merge the web and TV without compromising on either the web experience or the video experience, with a focus on discovery and personalization. Of course, since it’s Google, the interface is search-driven, so you can just type in things like “30 Rock” or MSNBC” to find channels and content — including upcoming content to record and content from the internet. Yeah, it’s kind of like the TiVo Premiere’s swivel search, but prettier — and there’s a Hulu logo on the screen, which is extremely intriguing.

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A good primer for basic knowledge of DSPs

0 Comments | This entry was posted on May 12 2010

Here is an interesting simple primer on the value and importance of DSPs for the ad space.  Worth a read.
DSPs: What they really are and why you should care – iMediaConnection.com

DSPs: What they really are and why you should care
By Eric Picard
May 12, 2010

Article Highlights:

* DSPs are advertiser/agency facing systems that let buyers do self-service media buying from publishers, aggregators, and exchanges
* Premium publishers fear there could be issues with real-time bidding on display inventory due to asymmetric bidding and low bid density
* It’s likely that high value impressions will go up in yield, while there will be a drop on the rest — the two should balance out

Recently on the Internet Oldtimers List, someone posted a link to a video mashup where someone had taken a clip from the movie “A Few Good Men” and replaced the famous “You can’t handle the truth!” dialogue between Nicholson and Cruise with a farcical semi-humorous debate about demand-side platforms (DSPs). What was interesting about this clip was that its central argument was that DSPs lower the CPM of premium publishers’ impressions (with Cruise arguing for the premium publisher and Nicholson arguing for the DSP).

The video is cute — pretty well done, and worth a view if you’re someone on the inside of this particular space online. But what really surprised me about it was that very few people seem to really understand what’s happening with DSPs in general — and there’s obviously misinformation going around. This particular debate about DSPs lowering the yield of publisher impressions was one I hadn’t heard articulated before.

So let’s get started digging into this by discussing what a demand-side platform really is. These advertiser/agency facing systems let buyers do self-service media buying from publishers; publisher aggregators (sometimes now being called sell-side platforms, or SSPs) like PubMatic, AdMeld, Rubicon, and others; and ad exchanges. The most important part of these mechanisms is that they enable real-time bidding against inventory on these sites. This is really important because in real-time bidding, the DSP can let the buyer specify business rules describing the value of impressions based on their audience attributes. That means the buyer can assign monetary value against specific audiences, and the DSP can bid on every impression in real time based on its actual value to the advertiser.

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HBR Followers vs. Influence, a popularity contest

0 Comments | This entry was posted on May 07 2010

An interesting article from Harvard Business review that compares “popularity” with “influence” on Twitter.  The article illustrates that follower count is not a sufficient metric in defining influence.  This is very important for marketers who are looking to reach “influencers” and are thereby focusing on finding those with the most followers for which to engage a strategy or leverage the ability of said user to sway the opinions of there followers. In actuality followers only shows how popular the user is (i.e., the size of her audience).

It does state a bit of the obvious that marketers/businesses, rather than trying to put emphasis on the follower count, could try to increase audience responsiveness and level of engagement by creating “conversations” around topics.

It is a shame though, and much like many academic research programs – which must have a very focused/limited thesis, the article only focuses on debunking the “influence vs popularity myth” vs creating a quantifiable answer to the real question of “how should one measure influence?”

Here is a kicker though, of the 52 million twitter accounts only 6 million are active. . .

On Twitter, Followers Don’t Equal Influence – Research – Harvard Business Review

On Twitter, Followers Don’t Equal Influence

9:30 AM Friday May 7, 2010
by Scott Berinato

It could be that Twitter research is popular because Twitter data is free and so accessible. That’s okay. Gift horses are just as good for riding.

The best, latest entry in Twitter research is the handiwork of Meeyoung Cha from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany. (Co-authors are: Hamed Haddadi, Royal Veterinary College, University of London; Fabricio Benevenuto, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil and Krishna P. Bummadi, also from Max Planck Institute.)

Cha called her paper, “The Million Follower Fallacy,” a term that comes from work by Adi Avnit. Avnit posited that the number of followers of a Tweeter is largely meaningless, and Cha, after looking at data from all 52 million Twitter accounts (and, more closely, at the 6 million “active users”) seems to have proven Avnit right. “Popular users who have a high indegree [number of followers] are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions,” she writes.

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