Smamot (Is that like a Marmot?)

It's Friday, and it wouldn't be the same if you didn't get to waste some time playing with a cool website.

Smamot.com, from LG, is one such website. It allows you to discover one of natures greatest mysteries in a very engaging way, by following an expedition route. OK, so the load time is a little long, but it's worth it for the time and effort they have put into the content... there's even mysterious clues for you to decipher along the way and a widget you can post to your blog to save animals from extinction (LG will donate to the WWF if people install it).

I really like the site, and the fact that they aren't overtly pushing the products (It's for one of their monitor ranges)... I actually had to look pretty hard to find full product specs and while this might be annoying for the hardcore data fans out there I think it suits the average consumer well, delivering a great experience.

What Faces are Hot Right Now?

It's been around almost as long as Facebook, but the Inside Facebook website is a great resource for getting to know what's happening on the platform. Particularly the article I have linked to which shows some figures on which Facebook pages are growing the fastest.

Victoria's Secret in particular has pretty impressive growth at 58%, but many others do as well... including the "I hate one word text messages!" page with over 188,000 new fans...

Hare and the Tortoise

There's a good article over on Marketing Vox with a POV on how the economic downturn is partly contributing to Social Media getting a 'break' and slowly overtaking traditional advertising.

Have a read, you may not learn a whole lot but it's nice to know people agree with what we in digital keep saying!

Display Ad's Build Brands?

New research from Comscore and the Online Publishers Association was released last week which states that consumers exposed to display advertising online are 50% more engaged with brands, and also more likely to purchase more online.

Titled "The Silent Click: Building Brands Online" it aims to look further than just whether an ad is clicked on to cover areas such as searches conducted by users and consumer spending and helps support the theory that it's not all about Click Through Rates when it comes to measuring effectiveness and ROI.

The official press release is here with a link to the full piece and lots of useful information.

Audio Micro-blogcasts?

There's a new service that I have just come across from RnSK Softronics Worldvoice which takes a little bit of Twitter, a little bit of podcast and the growing iPhone application phenomenon to create a service that allows users to leave 30 second audio clips on their own 'station' for others to listen to and follow.

It's early days yet, but I can see the potential... who wants to type a message when you can just record one?

There's more information on it over at TUAW.

Emotional Content Sells

A little creative example for you from Pantene in Thailand of how brands can create emotional and engaging stories in their marketing activity.

Yes it's a bit cheesy, yes it's a predictable and yes, it is way too long to fit into a TV spot (4 minutes) but it is a great example of something that has gone Viral, with over 1m views on Youtube alone.

Note the minimal branding, if I didn't know from the title it was from Pantene I wouldn't have had a clue until the end... now can someone pass me a tissue...

Real Time Sentiment Without Twitter

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter... we keep on hearing how it's the biggest social tool out there (and it quite possibly is). We also keep hearing about how marketeers can and should harness it to gain insights into trends how it operates as a real time barometer of what the world is thinking... but is it the only tool you can search for what is happening right now?

I have just come across a tool that has recently launched, Collecta. Launched in June this site is a beta search engine that monitors news sites, blogs, social media and image sites and allows you to search for whatever your heart desires, returning real time results.

Avoiding the temptation to type in 'Michael Jackson' I did a couple of other random searches for slightly less media prominent topics, namely 'Heatwave'... the results come back in real time, and if you leave it running it will just keep on updating whenever something new appears.

So far I have seen such gems as 'far too many male feet on show in the office today' and 'why isn't anyone talking about the heatwave' (er...)...

While my search might not be that relevant to the world of marketing I'm sure it could be used to get an idea of sentiment toward brands and other topics in real time, so try it out!

Delicious Insights

My colleague Fiona and I have talked about Delicious and what a great tool it is for eons now as it's a simple and easy to use tool for saving your favourites and commenting on them, as well as sharing things you like with others and discovering something new.

It has also come in handy in more than one of my roles as a way of getting information out to clients and the team... but what about using it to gain consumer insight?

Carla Sarett has published a very useful article over on the Interactive Insights Group website which looks at some of the ways to "mine" delicious for information on consumer habits and opinion.

I highly recommend having a read, you never know when it might come in useful alongside all that quantitative data you have!

iMedia First - Twitter In Ad's!

The social revolution keeps on trucking and Eyeblaster have just come along with another media first... online advertising that can incorporate live Twitter Feeds and information.

There is an example for VW running at the moment which asks you to enter your Twitter name... it then analyses your recent Tweets and personalises the ad, delivering the model of VW that they recommended, just for you (apparently I'm a GTi kind of guy).

Obviously you wouldn't go and buy a car suggested to you based solely on your Twitter history, but it does prove an engaging ad and brings something personal to the consumer.

I would love to see this kind of thing used for smaller purchases, maybe linked with some sort of direct purchase, trial offer or data capture? Or even for displaying product sentiment and WOM on Twitter live in the creative so the same ad is never served twice... so many possibilities...

The New Reality

As the guys over at Banner Blog say in this article if it wasn't for all the hype about Twitter then maybe we would all be talking about Augmented Reality.

If we put the old Virtual Reality machines in the arcades of the 90's to one side the first time I experienced this new breed of technology was a couple of years ago in London, when o2 were using postcards with a symbol on them to give away prizes for the opening of the o2 arena.

The premise was simple, hold the card up to the camera on their o2 car and on the screen, in my hand, appeared a 3D representation of what I had won.

As with a lot of digital innovation you have to see and experience it to get a true idea, which is why the Banner Blog article is so great, it has 35 examples of how it has been used in recent times, most from a marketing perspective... so go and check them out and start imagining the opportunities for brand promotions!

Thanks to Adam Sloan for the link.

MySpace in Decline

Just spotted this article in the LA Times.

It highlights how MySpace have been declining in the face of competition (namely Facebook) and some of the reasons why, the result of which is 420 job cuts (nearly a third of their staff).

It's an interesting read, and highlights that even the 'big boys' of digital need to keep innovating and bringing value to their audience if they are to continue their success.

The Social Graph in Action

I highly recommend checking this site promoting the new "Prototype" game from Activision.

In essence it is a trailer for the game... but by harnessing the power of the Social Graph and Facebook Connect they have managed to make things a little more personal.

It takes a little while to load so bear with it.

To Many Things To Do? Post-It

Sometimes I just see things that make me smile and this is one such thing...

Apparently this video took some time to create (and several thousand post-it notes) but well worth the effort I say.

If only it was 3M that came up with it and not a college student... it's a great example of what is a relatively dull product portrayed in an engaging way!

ZipCar On The Move More Than Ever

Constantly the struggle for marketers in the digital space is to bring consumers value.

This is an example from ZipCar who have created an application with some great benefits after their audience insight established a high iPhone penetration (25% of their audience can't live without it).

Essentially the application uses GPS to find the closest ZipCar, allow you to book it, unlock it remotely and even to beep the horn when you are nearby to help locate it.

It's a great idea and one which could genuinely make their consumers life easier through digital.

The Full Article is over on Springwise

Why Not Let Consumers Make Your Ad's?

Here is an interesting one for you... it's not quite User Generated content in it's true form, it is not quite video content created by a brand, and it's not quite an advertising buy... It is in fact the Youtube Sponsorship from Carl's Jr in the US.

There is a full article on the Adweek site but in essence what they have done is commission some of the stars of Youtube to create commercials for the brand in their own unique styles.

The content is hosted on the stars own pages, as well as in a dedicated Carl's Jr area and the creators are being paid according to how many views they get, thus providing incentive to make it good.

Click on the image above to here to check out some of the ad's so far.