WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

STARBUCKS OF THE FUTURE 
Starbucks recently turned 40 & in line with a mid-life crisis have recently unveiled their new look ‘Starbucks of the future’ in Seattle. The new iteration is no longer a layout/design clone, which is instantly recognisable wherever you go instead it looks nothing like a Starbucks & more like an independent café/bar. They will be serving regional wine & beer as well as coffee and the interior will be location dependent with furnishings & fittings sourced from the local area. It’s an interesting direction & a big gamble but clearly in line with cultural trends & desires, only time will tell if it’s a success…

MALARITY 
Faris has this week called attention once again to the under-use of humour in communications when difficult or culturally sensitive subjects need to be talked about. He says “The aforementioned effects of expectancy violation are even more potent when applied to a category that tends to avoid humor, and sometimes it's important to use entertainment value to enter a topic into the cultural conversation.”
The example shown is for ‘Malarity’, a new campaign tying together humour, celebrities & fighting Malaria in Africa. Check it out.

JAY-Z DECODED 
The launch of ‘Decoded‘, a memoir by Jay-Z, will be preceded by a campaign created by Droga NYC, it speaks to some of the key trends of the moment such as – game mechanics, transmedia storytelling & utilizing search/location to tell a story. Well worth a look.

STARBUCKS DIGITAL NETWORK 
This week Starbucks launched their Digital Network. Previously you’ve able to check out & buy CD’s & books in store while you wait for your coffee & now you can also check out specifically curated content available via free Starbucks Wifi on your mobile device, laptop or iPad. Starbucks figures the network will give you one more reason to choose them over a competing coffee shop. After all, why would you go to the guy next door when you can come to Starbucks and get a free download from iTunes? As for the content providers—who are dishing up their wares for free to Starbucks—it’s a great way to get in front of an audience who, if you can judge from sales of Starbucks-selected CDs, books, and DVDs, are eager to discover the next great thing on the culture front.
                
THE VALUE OF EXISTING CUSTOMERS VERSUS NEW ACQUISITION (INFOGRAPHIC) 
We’re all aware of CRM & cultivating advocates but many times, new customer acquisition creeps up the list of priorities & our existing purchasers are all but forgotten. Flowtown has put together a great infographic which should serve to remind us that we can’t forget our current customers because they remain our chief asset, it’s 6-7 times more expensive to acquire new customers versus increasing the purchase rate of existing etc etc…

CRACKING THE FACEBOOK NEWSFEED CODE….& HOW TO MANIPULATE IT 
How does the social media giant decide who and what to put in your feed? Tom Weber conducts a one-month experiment to break the algorithm, discovering 10 of Facebook's biggest secrets & how to cheat the system to ensure your updates appear in other peoples newsfeeds more often…For marketers it is of critical importance to understand how content propagates through the platform
 
10 TOP TIPS FOR LEVERAGING YOUTUBE AS AN ADVERTISING MEDIUM 
While so many individuals have found their 15 minutes of fame thanks to YouTube, fewer are the brands that have garnered acclaim with savvy use of the channel. If you haven’t already utilised this fantastic opportunity, check out AdAge’s top 10 tips on how to get started, optimise & get the best out of it.

MINI GETAWAY STOCKHOLM 
MINI Getaway Stockholm is a new iPhone app that enables you to play a reality game in the Swedish capital and gives you a chance to one a new MINI Countryman. It’s engaging due to its simplicity & the massive prize opportunity. I’ve a feeling this one will be quite successful…

WEEKLY DIGITAL/COMMS HIGHLIGHTS

I am a voracious reader. I learned to skim-read a long time ago so I can get through a lot of information in a short amount of time which is good for me but can be tiresome for others because, being Gen Y, I also like to share a lot with the assumption that everyone wants to hear what I have to say!

So rather than consistently spamming everyones inbox every time I come across something of interest, I set up a little initiative in the form of a weekly 'highlights package' containing all the cool, new, exciting digital/communications stuff I come across.

It's something I send out internally at Naked to keep everyone up to date & also something I've decided to put on my blog from now on.

Enjoy...

BECKS – SHAPE YOUR MUSIC EXPERIENCE

The latest iteration of the ongoing Beck's Music Inspired Art initiative launched this week with the Beck's Shape Your Music Experience. Throughout the duration of the project, Beck's will give away up to 25 million song downloads through Play.com. Limited edition bottles and cans will carry unique codes redeemable for downloads on the site.

To celebrate the initiative, Beck's commissioned artist Jamie Brown and Inventory Studio to create enormous live art installations in Birmingham and London.

MEDIALETS VAMPIRE WEEKEND INTERACTIVE MUSIC VIDEO (MOBILE)

A really simple, rich and interactive experience that launches straight from a banner and allows the viewer to listen to, watch and manipulate the band's latest video in full screen as well as get information on the album & links to download/buy.

SOCIAL NETWORK VS INFORMATION NETWORK

It’s easy to see why most people think Facebook and Twitter are essentially the same. The core of their experiences focuses around profiles, relationships and a newsfeed, but if you dig a bit deeper, you realize that people use each platform for different purposes. Mashable’s Ben Parr has written a great article about the differences between a social network and an information network.

ATOMIC TOM – IPHONE PERFORMANCE ON THE NYC SUBWAY

Even though the members of New York City rock band Atomic Tom supposedly had their instruments stolen, they loved the music so much they couldn’t stop rocking out. They took four iPhones onto the subway and delivered a rousing performance of their song “Take Me Out”….talk about improvisation!

THE ADOBE MUSEUM OF DIGITAL MEDIA

The world’s first virtual art museum dedicated to digital art & innovation. The brain-child of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The vision is to fill the museum with custom pieces of interactive art from around the world, it went live last week with it’s first piece called “Valley” by American artist Tom Oursler.

GIRLSCOUTS – WORLDS STRONGEST GIRL

A beautiful mini-animation about ‘The Worlds Strongest Girl’, which then leads into an interactive experience, created by Leo Burnett. The site enables girls to write and share stories that bring this idea to life, as girls are able to design custom badges with their thoughts about what makes the “World’s Strongest Girl.”  Badges also “speak” the ideas aloud and can be shared with friends. The idea is to help web-savvy girls foster stronger relationships with the Girl Scouts and further engage and inform the Girl Scout community.

THE ANDROIDS ARE COMING…

A just released infographic shows that Android handsets are tearing up the market outpacing the overhyped and all over the media Apple by a ratio of 4:1.

GOOGLE ROBOT CAR HITS THE ROAD

Google has secretly developed a robot car that can drive itself without any human intervention. And to prove that this is no fantasy, the company even sent out a few of its cars on roads across California, which were able to safely negotiate the traffic and turns, without any accidents.

BANNER ADS CAN NOW INCLUDE FACEBOOK ‘LIKE’

Advertisers such as Mountain Dew & JC Penny in the US have rolled out the new ‘like’ plug in within their banner ads. Viewers of the ads can ‘like’ it with one click & their action is recorded within Facebook on their newsfeeds/wall. Friends who have liked the ad will also be visible to you. It’s a logical step!

21st Century Enlightenment

A wonderful RSA animated talk that explores our previous endeavours as a society to create human happiness and how, in this day and age, that approach to 'happiness' is no longer valid.

Our previous priorities of driving progress through science & technology, the logic of markets and bureaucracy desperately need to be tempered with 'humanism', a deeper understanding of who we are as people and our ever increasing requirement of empathy for our fellow man in order to live in peace with each other. 

It's a bit academic but absolutely worth watching.

'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world'

The evolution of an internet meme: Bed Intruder

Meet Antoine Dodson, the latest 'darling' of the interwebs and the originator of the current 'bed intruder' meme sweeping everyone's Facebook, Twitter and Inboxes around the world.

It all began on July 28th when he was interviewed on an NBC-affiliate news program after the attempted rape of his sister in 'the projects' in Lincoln Park.
The video was made available online and quickly caught the attention of many of the viewers due to his flamboyant attitude and generally hilarious commentary.



The video understandably went 'viral' and within a few days was remixed by Youtube mash-up artists and musical group 'The Gregory Brothers' using autotune to quickly become an over night phenomenon:


Another day, another remix. This time from Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore and Jordan Pundik, lead singer of New Found Glory:


After just 3 weeks, Dodson has become a superstar with more than 16 million video views on Youtube and with the autotune 'bed intruder' song at no.35 on the iTunes chart. He was recently interviewed on NBC's Today Show about his new found fame...


Now 4.5 weeks in there are thousands of copy-cat videos on Youtube, you can buy t-shirts and other merchandise and Dodson has set up a website asking for donations to help his family move out of the 'hood', plus he is receiving 50% of all profits on the song sales! A great ending to a horrific beginning...

Oh the power of the interwebs!

My personal favourite:

Gaming mechanics for behaviour change

I've been reading alot lately about gaming mechanics and their effect on influencing and changing our behaviour both consciously and subconsciously.

Gaming is a part of all of our lives whether we realise it or not but many people's classification of of it is very narrow. They assume that video game players such as those who play 'World Of Warcraft' are 'gamers' but if you've ever used a rewards card (e.g. buy 5 coffees get the 6th free) then that makes you a gamer too, you've participated in an activity that works based on game mechanics.

Below is a great talk by Seth Priebatsch who runs SCVNGR, a mobile start-up who's aim is to build a 'game layer' on top of the world.
He argues that for the last decade we've all been focused on Social Networking and making connections but that the framework for doing this has now come to fruition and needs little to no tweaking, therefore our Social Networking phase is done and dusted.
The next phase which will develop over the next decade is 'Game Mechanics' which is all about influencing and changing our behaviour by placing a gaming layer over our everyday realities. It may seem far fetched to think that we'll all become 'gamers' but if we widen our definition of 'gaming' to encompass more than just traditional video games then it doesn't seem quite as implausible, it starts to seem entirely possible.

Seth discussed 4 key game mechanics that influence our behaviours and how we've already been exposed to most of these mechanics already:

1. The 'Appointment' Dynamic: A dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action
2. The 'Influence & Status' Dynamic: The ability of one player to modify the behaviour and actions of another player via social pressure
3. The 'Progression' Dynamic: A dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemised tasks
4. The 'Communal Discovery' Dynamic: wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge

Applications such as Foursquare, social games such as Farmville and feedback loops such as Nike+ are just the beginning...
Check out his talk below, well worth watching:

It's about the product, not the marketing...

Quote of the day: Jeff Bezos (Amazon) to Charlie Rose (US interviewer) :

"Before if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product. So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer. That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies...the individual is empowered... The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other."

Founder of 4Chan - TED 2010 Talk

Chris 'moot' Poole, the founder of 4chan, a controversial, uncensored online imageboard, describes its subculture, some of the Internet "memes" it has launched, and the incident in which its users managed a very public, precision hack of a mainstream media website, as well as the good outcomes they have achieved such as the amazing story of Dusty the cat...

The talk also raises questions about the power and price of anonymity and the fact that 4Chan is endangered due to social networks and the call for persistent identity online.