Digital Marketing and Web Strategy by Bob Hazlett | One Half Amazing!

Google releases geo-performance reporting feature

10 Web Applications for FriendFeed

Social Media Breakfast #6 Memphis and an update from Sharing at Work

Will it Matter in 5 Years?

On Demand WordPress Theme and a nice Thesis Update

The Most Brilliant Outdoor Campaign Ever

How Simple Web Design Helps Your Business and 40 Creative Design Layouts from Smashing Magazine

I also ordered two books: The Leader of the Future 2 and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Jingle Maker

Legendary (and fictional) record producer Tommy Silk helps you rock out your R.O.I and synthesize your sales by making a free commercial song with jingle lyrics written for your own type of business. Jingle lyrics are customized based on the business name and information you provide.  Commercials are based on Your Love, originally performed by The Outfield.  Jingle Maker is provided by Intuit, the makers of tax software QuickBooks.  I like how they’ve created a very creative and innovative campaign for a product that isn’t traditionally sexy.  In addition to the Jingle Maker microsite, they also have footprints on YouTube and Facebook

Mikes Hard Lemonade Victim Video

Need a day off, but you have to have an alibi?  Let Mike’s Hard Lemonade put together a personalized news clip that you can use to cover your tracks.  Upload a picture, give them some basic information and you’ve got yourself a custom video detailing your hard luck.  You can get sucked up in a street sweeper, stuck on a carnival ride or have your cat perform CPR on you.  To top it all off, they put the video in a customized web page that resembles a news website.  The videos are hard from believable, but worth many laughs.

Little Gordon Ramsay

Caterer.com has created 2 amazingly funny ads featuring a young Gordon Ramsay to promote their hospitality site. For my money (and attention), there’s nothing better than a kid with an English accent dropping f-bombs.  You have to see the videos to believe it. Video 1, Video 2.

Office Max – Power to the Penny

To promote their 1¢ back-to-school specials, Office Max put a hidden camera on an actor who went around to various establishments such as a deli, a used car lot and a jewelry store trying to pay with pennies.  As you can imagine, he wasn’t greeted with welcome arms after presenting a bag full (or truck load) of pennies on the counter. Office Max ends the spots with ‘We’ll take your pennies’.

The only down fall I found with this promotion is that the videos aren’t able to be viewed without going directly to the Office Max microsite, which is a major bummer to the viral aspect of this campaign.

Häagen-Dazs Help the Honey Bees

Maker of all things delicious, Häagen-Dazs, has created a public service announcement around the disappearance of the honey bee.  The ice cream gods go on to ask customers to plant a seed and support bee-keepers so the bees can continue to pollinate the delicious fruits that go into their ice cream.  Häagen-Dazs has also used more traditional forms of media to bring their cause to the forefront, including promoting their Bee-Boy dance crew that has been lighting up YouTube and the blogosphere.

I love the social aspect that Häagen-Dazs has employed with this campaign; its nice to see a company spend some of their own money to support and bring attention to causes they believe in.  I feel this only builds a stronger brand and increases the stickiness of their customer.  Check out the Bee-Boy dance crew video on this page in the feature video section.

Your Thoughts?

So, what have you learned from these?  What insight or tips have you taken away from these brilliant campaigns?  I’ve detailed my thoughts and tips below for making a creative and viral online marketing campaign below, but I want to hear what you think.  Leave your feedback in the comments or drop me a link to a campaign you find creative and witty.

Tips for making a creative and viral online marketing campaign.

• Make sure there is something in it for the user
• Make it easy and rewarding
• Think instant gratification
• Be sure the campaign doesn’t overshadow the product
• Insure users will connect the campaign to the product
• Make it desirable to pass on

Last week, I read an article from Inside Facebook describing the most popular facebook applications in terms of active users and user engagement.  This got me thinking; what are those elements that makeup a successful facebook or social media application? What should someone consider and incorporate into their application to really engage and encourage repeat visitors? Here are my thoughts.

A successful Facebook application should:

• Complement and build on features already based in the site – SuperPoke, FunWall and the like do a great job of filling in the gaps and adding features to facebook’s existing functionality.
• Solve a problem – It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but successful applications do a good job of solving small problems.  Good examples of this are BigPhoto, Birthday Calendar and Social Profiles (TagK).
  
• Simple/Low learning curve – Users should have a sense of what the application does without much thought.
• Allow users to create, build and shape the content to fit their desired environment – Animoto Videos does an excellent job of this.  They simply give the user the tools to create and build off of the content the user already has.
• Requires a second person to be successful – Facebook already does a good job of this in general, but applications like Scrabulous that almost require a 2nd person to play can really help to exponentially grow an application.
• Competitive element - Bragging rights are what its all about.  Users want their achievements blasted across their network.  They want to be the best and be recognized for it. See Bowling Buddies.
  
• Provides value to user – Work to answer what’s in it for them?

What do you think a successful facebook application should have?  What are the applications that you think do a good job of it?  Leave a comment with your thoughts.

I’m a Lady (Diplo Mix Ft Amanda Blank) – Santogold
Temptation – Jeremy Warmsley
Bye Bye Bye – Plants and Animals
The Tornado Lessons – Cloud Cult
You’ve Done It Again, Virginia – The National
Hurricane Jane – Black Kids
The Perfect Dose – Hooverphonic
GfC – Albert Hammond, Jr.
Left Behind – CSS
Your Protector – Fleet Foxes
You Could Make The Four Walls Cry – The Zutons
You, Me & The Bourgeoisie – The Submarinies
The Race – Cajun Dance Party
The Arhitect – Deus
Shine On – The Kooks
Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
Sister – Captain Black
Strength in Numbers – The Music
To the Bone – Mugison
Lollipop (Official Remix) – Lil’ Wayne Ft. Kanye West
When They Come To Murder Me – Black Francis
Freeway – Aimee Mann
Cassius – Foals
Jesus of The Moon – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Google Alerts Hack (via DuctTapeMarketing) – The premise of this is to use Google Alerts to see who is linking to your blog or picks up content you’ve recently published.  Think of it as a hybrid of Google Alerts e-mail alerts and blog pingbacks.  Very easy to implement – (1) Go to Google Alerts (2) in the search box input link:http://www.YourURL.com (replacing YourURL.com with the site you’d like to track) (3) Select the type and frequency. There you’ve got it, an easy way to build a strong community and readership to your site.

Google Insights for Search – Introduced this week, Google Insights provides deeper flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior as well as adding new features like a world heat map to display search volume and regional interest.  Similar to Google Trends, Google Insights allows you to see search patterns over specific time ranges as well as top related and breakout/rising searches across multiple verticals.  This is a great tool for any business and could really give the likes of WordTracker, Hitwise and comScore a run for their money.

Google Advertising Frequency – Because of their acquisition of DoubleClick, Google will soon be able to provide advertisers on the content network the ability to cap the frequency at which a user sees your ad, better reach and improved reporting.  This should be fully implemented in the coming months.