Social Hallucinations

Emotions in social advertising

There is no recipe how to create the effective social campaigns. Measuring of social campaign effectiveness is also difficult and rare. Social advertising is too important to be left out to chance.  Measuring recall isn’t enough. Effectiveness of social advertising should be measured on three levels: motivation, engagement and recall.  The higher is the motivation and engagement; the better is effectiveness of advertising in terms of generating the change.

Attention is scarce, Sex is wanted

Today, social advertising shares the same problematic as the commercial advertising:  dull sensitivity, immunity to advertising messages, scarce attention, increasing clutter and choices. Advertisers are forced to use nontraditional and sometimes controversial means in order to get through with their messages.

There are more social advertising that uses humor and sex in the fight for viewers attention. 

Read more on emotions and social advertising in my column on Talentzoo.com

Tags: social advertising, emotions, public service advertising, social ads

Apple Makes You More Creative

This is probably something that guides most of Apple products buyers, we hope for the magic and difficult to express in words aura to fall upon us and makes us more special and more creative. In fact this is not far away from the truth.

Gavan Fitzsimmons, professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University conducted a research together with his two colleagues where test subjects were shown Apple and Disney logo for 30 milliseconds - a subliminal flash that was not actually "seen" and they were respectively more likely to be creative and candid.

"Brands are almost human in representation in people's minds," said Gavan Fitzsimmons.

It means brands can also be the driver of the social influence. What does it mean for marketers, apart from the possibilities subliminal messaging brings. It means that branding and brand personality are very important as they are driving social influence and make a difference.

Read the whole article here

Photo by Miguel Ramirez

Happy Easter - The Abundance of Links

The Wisdom of Steve Jobs

35 Ways to Stream Your Life
If Facebook and Twitter aren't enough...

The Future Revolutions
The end of consumers service, self service takes over and other changes. Btw thinking of self service brings McDonalds into my mind. I do still believe good service is something that is crucial in any business.

Save the Earth
Set your alarm and wake up!

Leadership vs. management
How to win with good leadership? Turn your values into preferred behaviors.

Future Trends in Advertising by Ben Hourahine from Leo Burnett in London



Great commercial from Schweppes - slow motion creates pretty arty effect.



Amy Winehouse is fantastic singer and no matter what how descent bourgois gets incensed by her lifestyle, Amy seems to become a significant fashion icon loved by teenagers and designer like Fendi and LV.











HAPPY EASTER!

The Mechanism of Popularity

UPDATE

It can be this is one of the reasons behind the mechanism of popularity - Minds Think Alike

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We listen to the new song on the radio. We discover accidentally in the conversation with others that they've listened to the same song.. We visit iTunes and it appears there are many other people who have chosen the same song. We say, we like the song a lot. We say the song is fantastic...but it can be possible that none likes the song. It is possible that if we didn't know others liked the song, we wouldn't be interested in it at all. It is very likely that if the singer wasn't claimed to be "talent of the year", we would be less excited about her.
It is also possible that everyone the excitement, clapping hands and shouting loud is the result of the fact that others are also excited, clap hands and shout. Our excitement grows and is nurtured by others excitement. Everyone adjust her self to her neighbors, despite we try very hard to persuade ourselves and the world how unique we are, while our tastes, interests and opinions are the results of interests, tastes and opinions other people share. 




Picture by Delgoff

Tags: group, mechanism of popularity, brain, wisdom of the crowd

Disappearing Bees

Green marketing is companies darling at the moment. Everyone is talking about it and smuggling green into advertising messages. Not too many care. I've stumbled upon this site that is about helping bees that are disappearing, which will have catastrophic consequences in a long run. Just imagine, you will never taste strawberries.



Tags: hägen dazs, green marketing, disappearing bees

Beijing 2008

Those don't need any further commentary...you are either pro or against...

'



Tags: Beijing 2008, Amnesty International

Successful Facebook Applications Drive Socializing

Shelly D. Farnham researched Facebook applications and what determines their success. It is very interesting what he found out - applications that become successful help its users to achieve social goals:

"In reviewing the dominant types of applications, it is clear that most of the applications are helping users achieve social goals such as improved communication, learning about the self relative to others, finding similar others, improving self-presentation, engaging in social play, and engaging in social exchanges via gifts and media. Despite its shifting demographics, Facebook is still very much a social arena in the private, personal domain, not the professional domain."




Read / buy the full report here,

Tags: facebook, applications, Shelly D. Farnham

Researcher - Be Wakeful!

Interesting post from Neuromarketing blog about the danger of asking people what they did, why they did it. Brain isn't straightforward and linear as we would like to believe. Brain likes being mischievous.So researchers should be suspicious of answers given by people asked to explain their behavior or recall the past behavior - are we hearing the truth, or The Interpreter?









Tags: neuroscience, brain, research

We Think

'We Think' by Charles Leadbeater explores the potential and the power of the mass creativity. This neat video presents the main ideas from the book. I wait impatiently for my Amazon delivery.



Tags: we think, charles leadbeater

Via Only Dead Fish

May God Bless Your Brand

So many leave out their marketing efforts to the chance, why not use prayers instead. Christvertising is here to help.

"We skip the strategic deliverables.We pass on the matrixes, the payoffs and the metrics. We ignore any viral functionality. We focus on the ultimate end-user: God. Pray, Connect, Reach"



Tags: advertising, christvertising

Anti Facebook Song

To all people tired of your Facebook "friends" who spam you with hugs, spells, quizzes and useless application. It is entertaining.



Tags: facebook, spoof, billy joel, song, facebook applications

Media and Ad Agencies - It Is Time for You to Get Married

                                               "It is essential that media agencies have more input into the creative brief" said David Kenny, the chairman-CEO of Publicis Group's Digitas

Being media savvy is really important in the increasingly fragmented and diversified media world. There is no fix solutions and creative ideas must reflect media environment in order to work. It is trivial to say it over and over but we can't make campaigns based on closed communication models that seems to be alive in many advertising agencies. I've attended a couple of  meetings where ad agency presented first their great idea and then came up with a couple of slides for media agency - their media recommendation (newspapers and TV), without even giving a thought whether their message can thrive in the given media. Media aren't only about buying advertising space and optimizing reach at low cost. Media are about understanding how and when connect with consumers and establish your brand / message in their lives. Media are about well-thought communication solutions and maximizing your reach via creating social networks or becoming part of them. You can't achieve a success with your great picture and slogan on it that you throw like a bomb on the consumers. Bombs explode and destroy. Media used wisely - connect and build. We, at Vizeum work with connections planning where the starting point is not only collecting consumers insights but understanding human's motivations behind media usage. This is what should drive ideas. Ideas, messages should fit media "personality", otherwise our messages are like bull in a china shop.

                                                                      "Medium is the message" McLuhan

In my humble opinion, it is not about who takes a lead, it is not about who is more important on the client's partners list. It is about COLLABORATION. Both media and advertising agencies are on the same side. It just makes me sad that we perceive each other as competitors and collect efforts to prove who's better. We should reunite our efforts and talents to create unforgettable and effective solutions. We should get married!'

Photo by *Solar ikon*

Tags: advertising, media, collaboration, David Kenny, connection planning

4x4 About Me...OMG I've Been Tagged!

Finally, there is an interest in my humble persona - I've been tagged by two persons at once! CB Whittemore and Neil.
It is funny phenomena tagging. It is like getting closer to people you know and are curious to know more details about their life. It is about answering noisy questions. We are tagging and getting tagged all the time in offline life. It is always nice to show off your feathers :-)

Four categories and four bits of information for each category. 4 x 4 about me. It includes "8 things you don't know about me"

4 Places I'd love to Live In:
- Trinidad, Cuba
- New York, US
- Krakow, Poland
- Nepal


4 Most Exciting Jobs I've Held:
- interviewer at research company - I've been traveling to some distant and forgotten villages and interview old people about their lives through the last 40 years (that's some kind of tagging!). It was so inspiring to hear those stories. I've many of them in me until today and they guide me in a way through life.
- assistant to psychologist who was conducting an experiment in a deep forest where there were no facilities, like water for example to see whether we can shake off culture when exposed to primitive conditions. I've discovered many interesting things about human beings who can't take a shower every day. One thing was for sure, nature is stronger than culture.
- sales assistant at art gallery
- having no traditional job at all...just living, walking around, talking to people, photographing, reading and writing.


4 Foods I Really Like:
I love most of what I cook. I am excellent cook, but if I have to choose four:

- lamb marinated in home-made pesto
- blueberries
- marzipan
- champagne
&

sus
h
i

4  TV Shows I Watch:
- Heroes
- Californication
- XFactor (Danish talent show)
- Klovn (Clown - hilarious Danish comedy show, it is all but political correct)

4 Books I couldn't Live without:

- Idiot, F. Dostoevsky
- In the search of lost time, M. Proust
- War and Peace, L. Tolstoy
- The Last Cohort, W. Lysiak

4 Things You Don't know about me:

- I was supposed to be tennis star but I've decided to rebel against my parents and destroyed my tennis rocket, only to become...
- ... punk for a year or something - heavy belts, anarchy, Sex Pistol and working hard on making holes in my jeans
- I have 100 pair of shoes
- I have weakness for gambling (which actually lies in my family)

4 Persons I' am tagging

- Mark from Herd
- Charles from Punk Planning
- Paul from Paul Isakson
- Dino from chroma


Tags: tag, 4x4 tags, me

OUR President - Obama

Barack Obama is being accused of using just words. It can be but words happen to be one of the means we use for communicating with other people. While Hilary Clinton gets angry shouts "Shame on you Barack Obama", Obama and the creatives that have a crush on him deliver the next message. The message that is about hope and change, but most of all about the power of community.

"He's gonna be our president. He's gonna speak for us, cause we've put him there"



I have shown this video to many people, non-US citizens and I think it was fascinating to hear their reactions. Those who dare, admit having goose bumps, because "they hear human message from the politician", others hide the feeling and say it is manipulation with words and emotions.

Even Bill Clinton endorses Obama message...kind of. Bill Clinton isn't faithful husband again.



Barck Obama became a brand, an idea that speaks with a human voice. Does he mean it? Does he has the power and abilities to turn the words into actions? I guess we can only find out when he becomes elected. For now Obama is visionary and charismatic politician, the type we have missed in the world and I hope he will become US president.

Tags: US election, Obama, politics 2.0