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Thanks to our clients at HBO, and our friends at FunnyOrDie.com, we were all able to pull together and make this happen.
Enjoy!
Wow. This may be the most insensitive, untimely, poorly-thought-out initiative I've seen in a long time. If Pizza Hut were a person, I'd say it was a jerk.
Lets see...anger mom & pop pizza places (yes, in this economy), and bring in the mass-produced bastardization of their bread and butter to rub in their face. Yeah. That makes me feel better about Pizza Hut. It's one thing to call out your competition if they are another chain. It's another to insult small businesses.
My advice? Next time, stop trying to make a 'viral' with the goal of getting views, and instead, focus on creating content that actually builds your brand -- or at least makes it look good.
This video deserves to get - er - panned.
Add Facebook Connect to Your Blog in 8 Minutes from Dave Morin on Vimeo.
Here's a question, if Typepad (which hosts this blog) has their own 'connect' service, will they make it easy to add this functionality across their platform?
Come on, guys. You know you want to do it. Do it.
I firmly believe that alongside some pretty nasty side-effects, this economic downturn can also bring about good things in the form of a digital marketing renaissance. Over at AdAge, I explain why.
Here's a brief excerpt:
Marketing innovations during recessionary times have been proven (and reinforced by smart folks at places such as Harvard Business School) to lead to increases in market share, shifts in brand loyalty, reinforcement of core values and better opportunities to learn more about your customers. In fact, some of the best brands and products have been launched successfully during recessionary periods. MTV, the iPod and Crest White Strips are but a few examples of those.That's why many experts suggest the thing you shouldn't do during a recession is cut back on ad spending. But it happens nonetheless. Hey, the bottom line is the bottom line. And when that happens, everyone feels it. Publishers, agencies and, of course, advertisers -- both traditional and digital.
Historically, it's the time when everyone starts talking about direct response, search engine marketing and every other bottom-of-the-sales-funnel, ROI-attached ad tactic as "the responsible thing to do."
But while those may be important components of a holistic advertising strategy, what often gets left on the cutting-room floor is a budget for everything else marked with the scarlet letter E (for "experimental"). Display advertising, promotional microsites, social media and other forms of interactive marketing often get that E label.
What are my tips for digital marketing in a recession?
In case you missed the spot, which was in heavy rotation through Thanksgiving weekend, here it is:
So what does it all mean?
LeBron james has a pre-game ritual of reaching into the chalk/talc basket near the scorer's table, rubbing it on his hands, then throwing it into the air. It's electrifying, and the crowd usually goes wild. It looks like this:
The track in the spot is 'Candyman' from Cornershop (they also scored a charting hit in 1997 with 'Brimful of Asha') which I believe may have gotten a little remix from Lil' Wayne. And that track is several years old, but a hip-hop masterpiece.
The song title, 'Candyman' is usually used to reference drug pushers.
Lil' Wayne made his first few bucks by selling cocaine.
Lil' Wayne is in the stands in the spot.
Lil' Wayne also brushes the chalk off his feet - possibly an allusion to his rise from the streets to fame -- and giving up on cocaine.
The chalk is also featured in a donut/coffee shop and a barber shop. The former representing the blue-collar everyman, and the latter is one of the primary meeting places in urban culture. It's where all the issues of the day are discussed.
This spot is phenomenal because it does the following:
1) It shows that Nike gets LeBron.
2) It shows that Nike gets basketball.
3) It shows that Nike gets the intersection of basketball, hip hop, and street culture.
4) It shows that Nike gets music.
5) And if you're savvy enough to understand all the finer points of the spot, Nike understands you.
Sheer brilliance. Yes. TV spots can still be great at telling stories -- but the web is a great place for continuing their discussion.
**UPDATE**
Another reason this spot is great? Director, Mark Romanek, director of some of the best music videos of our time (I highly recommend his DVD).
Here are the credits for the spot:
Client: Nike
Title: The Chalk
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, Portland
Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Tyler Whisnand, Jeff Williams
Copywriter: Caleb Jensen
Art Director: Taylor Twist
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman
Agency Producer: Erika Madison
Production Company: Anonymous Content, Los Angeles
Director: Mark Romanek
Executive Producer: Dave Morrison
Producer: Aris McGarry
Head of Production: Sue Ellen Clair
Director of Photography: Adam Kimmel
Editor: Robert Duffy
Post-Production: Spot Welders
Post Producer: Carolina Wallace
Assistant Editor: Patrick Murphree
Audio Post-Production: Lime
Mixer: Loren Silber
Colorist: Siggy Ferstl @ Riot
Effects: Digital Domain
VFX Supervisors: Brad Parker, Vernon Wilbert
VFX EP: Karen Anderson
VFX Producer: Melanie LaRue
Senior Flame Artists: Chris De Cristo, Andrew Eksner, Jonny Hicks, Pilon Lectez
Talent: LeBron James, Anderson Varejao, JJ Hickson, Daniel Gibson, Greg Oden, Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Lil Wayne, Jamie Nared
Music: “Candyman” by Cornershop
What does that mean?
According to the license, visitors can copy, distribute, display, and perform material from the site, as well as to remix it, as long as the work is attributed to its source.
What does that mean?
It means that the Obama team is taking this 'open government thing' pretty darn seriously. People will be free to take any material from the site, and do what they wish with it (hopefully constructively) to their heart's content.
Interestingly enough, if this were an 'official' government site, there would be no need for this license as all work would be in the public domain. But since it isn't, the site previously had an 'all rights reserved' claim on it -- meaning you can't just lift material from the site without explicit permission from the Obama team.
So until January 20th, feel free to take Change.gov content and turn it into song lyrics, spoken word performances, leaflets, fliers, and desktop wallpaper -- just make sure you attribute it to the source.
And get this -- after January 20th, you're still cool. Public domain, baby.
More on this from Lawrence Lessig.
For those of you unfamiliar with AIR, it is Adobe's Integrated Runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application.
Its promise is the two-way constant stream of data right to the desktop, across all platforms, with a simple installation process. Install the runtime once, and each additional program is a click away from living on your computer.
But where are all the applications?
There are a few that I use every day, including Tweetdeck for all my Twittering needs.
But this seemingly perfect application environment is neither boasting the applications that can generate a significant number of downloads, nor a significant amount of adoption.
While Adobe's Flash player has 99% penetration, numbers are not available for AIR. But my hunch is that it lingers in single digits. It's an opt-in download, and people need a legitimate reason to install it.
But where's the OEM support from the PC manufacturers? Where's the ad campaign? Where's the communication from Adobe as to why we should install it in the first place? It's a great development environment, and the technology holds promise not just for computers, but for all kinds of connected devices.
If the driving force behind a successful (branded) application is utility, then AIR could be the engine driving it for millions of people.
But instead, half of the most popular AIR applications are social media interfaces created by amateurs. Whither the corporate support?
If Adobe wants AIR to take off, we're going to need official AIR apps -- and they should probably look to the iPhone App Store on iTunes for some helpful hints.
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