Word of Mouth, The Best Gig In Town

Marketing has come a long way in the last 100 years or so. Ever since our boy Sigmund Freud figured out that we could actually use media (among other things) to manipulate how humans perceived products/brands/etc it's been quite the free for all.


Case in point:
1960: Barney takes a "Winston Break"





2008: A random song and dance outside a big tobacco company's headquarters



There's no doubt that we've come a long way to at least not trying to sell cigarettes to children, but even the current tactics are becoming obsolete. We are bombarded with so many messages daily its pretty much impossible to drown out the noise.

Enter word of mouth marketing. While not a new concept, in this world of marketing noise has made it a necessity to ensure people are having conversations about yours brands.

I was on the subway the other day and this group of women was speaking very loudly about all of the great things that Cineplex Odeon had done for her, as she had just won a year of free movies. More specifically, she was pumped about the great customer service she received so that she didn't have to pick up her movie tickets every week as the original deal intended. (See my previous post on customer service here.)

Honestly, this woman was like an evangelist for the brand to the point where I was skeptical of whether she was a real person or whether she was some guerrilla marketer getting kickbacks from the company. I continued to listen, and all of the women were sharing about their interactions they had with various brands over the course of the last few weeks, both good and bad. I had to assume they were legit, as I doubt most companies would be paying people to bad mouth another brand, but maybe I just too benevolent for my own good. ;p

Either way, as a quasi-marketer I was blown away at how these ladies were just listing off all of the brands they interacted with and their opinions with such passion. I just thought to myself: If they were talking about my brand, this would be a gold mine!

Of course it is not that easy to get people talking about your brand positively, but if you can capture the elusive beast, you'll be part of the best gig in town.

The Paradigm Shift- Can Video Games Help Implement Open Government?

I got into a great debate over the weekend with my stepmom over the values of the baby boomers vs. generation y and the merits/pitfalls of each. I won't share the whole debate, but one of the things she brought up is how my generation doesn't realize "what we are losing" by relying so heavily on technology. I probed a bit deeper and she began to talk about how we are communicating through a machine instead of talking face to face like her generation has previously done. I found this fact very interesting as Growing Up Digital explained this exact phenomenon where Baby Boomers actually see the act as "using technology" while my generation sees it literally as talking to another person. My step-mom's point was that even though we are gaining in terms of collaboration and connectivity, we are likely losing something in the process... likely privacy, and the "social skill" of interacting face to face. The other valid point she had was that if my internet goes down or if you take the blackberry/laptop out of my hands we are unable to function very efficiently, if at all.

Question: Do you think that as a society we are becoming too reliant on technology?

As our debate continued, I began sharing with her why I have such a strong belief in the internet. One of these reasons is the potential power to fundamentally shift the way our institutions work. As I started surfing around I found this 7 part mini-doc about this very topic:



After watching this series, I was particularly blown away by the event where the residents of the town decided what projects should be funded with the $20K up for grabs. What was truly amazing was that even the older gentlemen who did not receive funding, were generally OK with it because they realized there were other more pressing issues in the community. The wheel cogs in my head started churning, and I had a light bulb idea on how how the government could be run under a very similar model.

Imagine that we take a version Ontario Budget Simulator for whatever level of government and pair it with A Campaign Platform to take in feedback on policy issues. The government would still have a role in saying, we are going to give $X certain region, and then you lock in your vote via the budget simulator and the aggregate decision is what the government implements. This is really what I think Jane McGonigal is talking about when she says we need to "make the world more like video games" in order to enact change. Afterall, if you can play a videogame and improve your community by doing it, isn't that a way more powerful influencer than handing out flyers for your candidate hoping that he/she is going to do what they promised? I think she's on the right track more and more everyday.

There are definitely some issues with this model, but I think a whole redesign of the system would have to be completed in order to make this successful. For example, how far/often is the public allowed to run a deficit? How do I avoid any one large demographic from completely ignoring another demographic in policy issues? I need to do some more research on this idea to find out if its unique or not, so I think my first stop is Wikinomics.

Question: Do you think that political participation would be greater if it was more like a video game?

As a closing thought, one of my favourite lines from the Us Now videos is that we have "implementation issues, not reasons that we shouldn't do it"... so let's go figure out how to implement these new models for society, and ultimately make our world a better place.

Who needs traditional advertising when you have ambitious students?

I know that Brock University, the lovely institution that allowed me to get the sweet job I have now has invested lots of money over the years in advertising. That's all well and good, but I have to ask, if they spent a little bit of money to help fund projects like this more often, who would need advertising!?



My old roommate (1:19.... rocking the standy Jeffie Pie Leather Jacket) is in this video, which makes it extra fun. I always knew when he started getting involved with Brock TV he had found his calling.


SURGITE!

Is Our Concept Of "The World" Coming To An End?

The title of this post is really for shock value... but it came from this:

I figure if Twitter is having issues on a Friday... it must mean the world is in true peril!


Jokes aside, the importance of electronic communication in our society is not even a question anymore... it's a given. So what happens when these tools are unavailable or we aren't able to access them? Well, the world as we know it practically falls apart. This is very apparently in my office, where if/when the network goes down, nearly everyone in the office says "I guess I'll go home and hopefully the network will be up later so I can finish my work". THAT'S how dependent we are on technology!


And thats's just a single server.... when the power goes out the world practically stops. Heck, when we had that huge power outage a few years back we couldn't even pump gas to put it in our cars!


Either way, I'm on a tangent here (surprise, surprise). These tools do make us more interconnected (and therefore more vulnerable), but I came across this excellent video from TED where Jane McGonigal is trying to convince the crowd about how Gaming can actually change the world as we know it.


Take a peek and tell me what you think. I think it's a stretch to say gaming can save the world, but I think the novel idea here is "how can we organize the world to be more like a game... with targetted incentives and a constant sense of reward, even when the challenge is difficult and takes a long time to achieve?"


PS: She talks about World of Warcraft a lot... so check out the title link for a peek into my WoW life. :)

A Weekend Off The Grid Was Much Needed... Even If I Couldn't Wait To Get Back

It's official.

I have an internet addiction... ask my gf, she'll tell you. This is me after about 1.5 days without access:

Now, it's more like a Coffee addiction than say, hard drugs, but it's an addiction nonetheless. I spent the weekend at my lady's parents house eating delicious food and playing with their new puppy (who is adorable), but in order to get the great scenery and sounds of the great outdoors, I was confined to only having dial up internet access. I must admit it was a great throwback (my gf and I had a good debate on the merits of ICQ... but eventually decided we didn't need to redownload it for nostalic purposes!)

I did manage to survive it all, and I have about 5lbs worth of extra weight to prove there are other unhealthy things that I could replace my internet use with... but for now, I'll stick with the highspeed!