MENTOR
Dan's been working in online marketing for SonyBMG for 9 years, which is almost as long as he's been alive. This means he and the internet are like brothers - they grew up together and know each other inside out. And they sometimes fight but love each other really.
Dan's particular skill is using the internet for communication, which is something our Battlefront campaigners definitely need to do. He knows what's possible and, more importantly, what's worth doing. In his own wonderful words:
"I feel like some kind of web idea Grinch, because every time someone suggests making a FaceSpaceTube appli-widget-download-ometer, I am forced to tell them that, as lovely as that may sound, there are probably far simpler and more effective ways of communicating their message."
LATEST BLOG POST
04 December 2008
Amazon UK mp3 store
Seriously, this is really good. No reason not to use it vs iTunes*.
The downloader is really simple, it plops tracks into iTunes without you having to import them, and they’re higher quality than iTunes’ DRMd files (256k vs 128k. iTunes Plus is generally 256k as well).
*irrelevant if you source your music from the naughty internet.
More recent posts
- Everything We’ve Made That’s Good 03 December 2008
- "The Long Tail has just had another run-in with large amounts of real-world data, and again come out..." 18 November 2008
- Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails 12 November 2008
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
YOUR COMMENTS
ADVICE
Identity
The best thing someone can think about your product/ campaign is that it's good enough to be worth talking about to their friends. There is no point in branding something that's rubbish. You may get some short term gain if your branding looks great, but if the product/ campaign lacks or authenticity, or isn't communicated clearly, or has poor usability, you will lose in the long term. And the medium term.
Google Tools
Google Tools (http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/options/) - Google is much more than a search engine. Alerts, Blog Search and Google trends (http://www.google.com/trends) all provide you with extremely useful ways of investigating what's going on around the web in your campaign area.
Genuinely Viral
http://b3ta.com and http://failblog.org will show you exactly the kind of stuff that is genuinely viral. Very rarely is it made by brands.
Viral
'Viral' stuff on the web is either funny or rude or outrageous or, ideally, all of those things. It has to be literally 'remarkable', ie. something people will choose to talk about with their friends. The most viral thing my team has ever started was a series of chocolate bar mashups, where we photoshopped well-known chocolate wrappers together to make rude words. Nothing to do with selling records at all, sadly, but we still see it circulating several months after the event.
Meritocracy
The internet is largely a meritocracy, which is great news if you have a cracking idea and you know your subject inside-out. Authenticity is crucial, don't ever try to fool people.
Who
Think about who ultimately has the authority to effect the change that you're campaigning for. Then think about the best way to reach those people, ie what's important to them.
I WANT
THE I WANT TAG CLOUD
This is a tag cloud. It eats words, but only ones about how people want to change the world. You can click on a ‘want’ to agree or disagree. The more people agree with a want, the bigger it gets, until the tag cloud starts to wish it didn’t have eyes bigger than its stomach.
