I'm speaking next week (May 6th) at the Hargreaves Institute in Sydney. I'm really chuffed to be talking about some of my agency's successes (and failures) with social media and trying to distil into some key learnings and watch-outs for marketers. I'll post the presso here afterwards in case you can't make it.
(Actually I'm going to try recording the presentation and adding audio to a ppt, then embedding via slideshare - if it's OK I'll post it, but no promises - it only supposed to be 30 minutes too).
I think it's immensely fitting that the Institute was named after Lawrence Hargrave, an aviation pioneer who believed in open communications and that his inventions were there for the benefit of everyone - in other words an open source pioneer. I think he would probably agree with many of the themes of my presentation...
Sorry, but no other word for it, Nike+ is an awesome (and useful) idea.
Here's how it hit me.
As always my New Years resolution is to shed a few pounds (or more like 15kilos this year).
Now people who know me will understand how a piece of technology might just provide enough fascination to get me through the first few weeks of a training programme. And that's how I viewed Nike + (Nike also happens to be a client of ours and I wanted to really understand what the product is about).
Its been just over 3 weeks and I've logged 9 runs and 40-odd kms and (touch wood) am through the hardest part - the start. So far so good, and I'm VERY impressed. The female voice is great and talks to you over your iPod playlist. This can be initiated either by me, or I can get auto updates during the run e.g. "you have run 3 kms".
The RG/A created site is excellent and records all my run data and achievements, and I have joined a couple of challenges (community-based feature that allows you to work with or compete against other runners globally).
I can see some great applications for this feature for motivation, and also interestingly fund raising. I'll be reporting back on this soon, once I've fleshed some thoughts out.
The Publicis team also recently applied this thinking recently to a schools challenge in Oz and NZ and in 4 weeks tens of thousands of KMs were run. Check out the leader board below.
This morning after my run Tiger Woods said to me "Congratulations you've just recorded a personal best for a mile".
I am truly hooked, this is 'branded utility' at its absolute best.
This from Stan Rapp in the intro to Joseph Jaffe’s fantastic read Join the Conversation.
1. The Internet is the center of the universe.
2. The experience is the brand differentiator.
3. The database is the primary marketplace.
4. The technology is the explosive ingredient.
I can think of nothing that I've seen recently that best encapsulates the spirit and intent of what marketing is and should be about today.
In a ‘first law of Buddhism’-like way this needs to be much more widely believed. I know it sounds trite and even counter in some ways to marketers who try and put their consumer at the heart of everything. But that's the point - in the future it's going to be simply: 'everything over IP'.
Perhaps if there were greater acceptance of the truths above, then marketers and agencies would change more rapidly.
I'll be reviewing this book soon - I'm savouring it at the moment.
Photo credit: Thanks Sean
Simon Morgan is a Partner at Mojo and Publicis Digital Australia. Known unaffectionately by his friends as fAdman, he has always got his fingers in several pies - usually somewhere at the intersection of advertising, creative, technology, pizza and ukulele. He is married to Miriam and together they wrangle three challenging young boys in Sydney, Australia.
