Unearthing one golden pixel at a time
In pre-internet times, one could say the main currency for advertisers was attention. In today’s web 2.0 world, where you can find virtual communities whose characteristics and interests already align with your brand, the main currency is engagement or how much time are they willing to spend with you. Social networking sites demand a lot of a person’s time; so how many social networks can one take? According to compete.com most people are willing to belong to 3-4 social networks maximum.
Nissan North America thinks they can unlock the door to reach the distracted, elusive customer in an increasingly competitive category. How? With keys.
For this promotion, 20,000 key rings will be deliberately “lost” in bars, concert halls, sports arenas and other public places in seven large US markets. Each key ring will have three keys, all real, and two tags. The biggest key resembles a car key and the other two look as if they could fit the locks on house or office doors. One tag declares, “If found, please do not return,” because the Altima “has Intelligent Key with push-button ignition, and I no longer need these,” a reference to the technology that allows an Altima owner to start the car by pressing a button on the dash rather than inserting a key. The same tag invites the finder to learn more about the ignition system by visiting a section of the Nissan Web site.
Promotional site for Kenneth Branagh’s new film “The Magic Flute”. Totally immersive with lots of little discoveries. If you’re a Mozart fan, crank up the volume.
You got to give it up for NBC Universal and News Corp.
Aside from syndication agreements with Yahoo!, MSN.com and Time Warner’s America Online, along with a fairly detailed business brief, the two old-media titans have nothing to show for their ambitious Web video destination site and service. They don’t even have a name for it!
Industry insiders are calling it NewTube. Among other things, NewTube’s videos can be embedded on any site, YouTube-style. But unlike YouTube thus far, they’ll come with Big Media-approved copyright protection and, in some cases, a small share of ad revenues.
What does this mean?
For media geeks, NewTube is big news. But the venture, expected to launch this summer, is merely one of myriad developments that will remake the world of Web video in the next few months. Think about all the new ad revenue models. The advertising possibilities. Contextual messaging. Sponsorships. Oi… the list just gets bigger.
Exciting times ahead.
From ClickZ: Nike is ditching Wieden + Kennedy for some of its running shoe business, and the Wall Street Journal knows why: the agency has been dissing digital.
An interesting article from emarketer showing the popularity of online video skews male. Women are still well represented but they’re more partial to movie trailers and news than all the amateur video forwarded around on YouTube.
A key idea behind web 2.0 is that it’s the community of users that provide the value. And that’s increasingly true for brands. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. A great example can be seen at Fiskateers. They call it Crafting Ambassadors. Nike does an incredible job of tapping into emotion by showcasing the people who lend street “cred” to the brand as well as the people behind the designs at Air Force One.
TV show + website + community = Acceptable.TV.
The TV show airs every Friday night on VH1 at 10pm. You can watch five episodes of short TV shows, and one show made by the Acceptable.tv community. Show made by the community with the most votes is aired on VH1. Pretty solid idea. Not sure what Jack Black’s role is… Executive producer?
Yahoo is on a roll. The much-anticipated release of Yahoo Widgets 4 was launched last week and I’m happy to say it’s absolutely bug-free. Like the page says…
Save time with live updates delivered to your desktop
* Your favorite info delivered to you on your desktop
* No need to go surfing around for the info you access most
What this means is more and more PC users can experience the same kind of widget accessibility that MAC users have had since Apple released Dashboard. This is also a clear indication that the widget-economy is starting to blossom. VW has already signed up with the release of their VW Rabbit events.
You have to download and install the Yahoo Widget engine on your machine to run their widgets. I’m a MAC user, and it’s doesn’t replace my Dashboard, but it sure does enhance my widgets 
You can download Yahoo Widgets 4 here. If you want to see the VW widget, go here.
New site for the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas with oodles of video. It’s like watching an episode of ER in a hotel. First-person camera perspectives throughout deliver the hotel experience. Created by Sid Lee (formerly known as Diesel) out of Montreal.
