Not long ago, Times Square was the epicenter of digital signage in the U.S. It may still represent the highest concentration, but digital signage is exploding and you see it just about everywhere now. Digital signage is officially “the next big thing” for a lot of marketers. In a recent Razorfish survey it was ranked second to mobile as the most important emerging media channel in the coming year. Roughly 51 percent of respondents ranked mobile as the most important, followed by Digital Signage with nearly 32 percent. Other channels trailed by a wide margin.

Interestingly enough in a recent article in Wired Magazine they featured a company called MegaPhone that combined both of these emerging areas.

MegaPhone is a mobile gaming company whose latest project is to connect cell phones with games embedded in big-screen billboards in places like you guessed it … Times Square!

People can interact with these billboards via a special phone number which will show them as special avatars identified by the last four digits of the caller’s phone number.

When I first read the article I thought it was just another super geek application but the more I thought about it – the more you can think up new applications for this.

For example, Jumbotrons at sporting events where they can pick attendees to play an engaging mini game of basketball, baseball, football, hockey, or whatever sport you are watching. Rock Concert goers could dial into the Jumbotron to participate in a live chat with the band backstage. Tradeshow events could use this to allow real time Twittering and live Q&A via mobile. Anywhere you are waiting in line – airports, hotels, on airplanes, amusement parks (read Disney) could not only pre-engage their audience with the ride – perhaps they could let us sign up for tickets once we enter the park and call us when we are due to blast off!

This one article opens up the wide world of mobile marketing, digital signage and more importantly a glimpse at the future of social media marketing (SMM).

This is a recap of a presentation by Michael Lazerow of Buddy Media from the Web 2.0 Expo

Social Networks are clearly here to stay with almost 50% of the population is using these sites (70% of teens).

Social Network have all opened up their platforms which means that brands have cost effective access to more than 500M engaged users (250M of them on just Facebook and MySpace alone!)

This is a massive distribution channel for any brand but still <1% of digital ad budgets are going toward Social Networks – why?

Because Social Network ad impressions are worthless – the old model of buying impressions is like shouting at consumers – you buy ads to “get in front of them” and “give them a message” – but that’s not going to work in a “social “ world by definition!

The new ad model will be about creating social brand loyalty by creating Social Branded Applications that allow users to interact with your brand attributes. That’s when we make the pivot from finding a target audience and moving messages to them – to creating Social Branded Applications that give away the message and letting the audience tailor it to the social graph.

Here are some examples of brands benefiting from Social Branded Applications …

FedEx

Created a Social Branded Application called - “Launch the Package” which is very in line with the FedEx brand. It is simple, fast, easy to use etc.

Has had the most activity of any application on Facebook with 72,000 packages delivered per day, 100,000 installs in 72 hours more than 300,000 active users in 6 days with less than 10% uninstall rate.

New Balance

Created a Social Branded Application to get in front of key customer and influencers. It’s a game called the New Balance Run-devouz where you earn points and redeem for shoes, kinda like a Chuckie Cheese but for Facebook.

So far they have 250,000 active users, with 86% returning at least once, 57% of which came back 9 times or more! And so far $1,000,000 in virtual dollars have been earned by customers which can be redeemed for actual shoes.

BudLight

Created a Social Branded Application that utilizes Facebook’s “age gating” so only certain age groups can use this application. So they created the Dude Campaign which connects to the BudLight ad Dude ad campaign but allows the user to determine through a series of questions what kind of dude they really are: Examples Game On dude, Red Neck dude, Gangsta dude etc.

So far they have 200,000 installs in 5 weeks, 14% average daily growth, 6000+ daily users, 19% of users visited every day during the campaign.

InStyle

Created a Social Branded Application for hair makeovers where you can grab celebrity hair and add it to your Facebook picture once you find the new hair style you like you can then save it and add the InStyle banner and upload it back to your Facebook profile for your friends to vote on.

So far they have 185,000 installs in 6 weeks, 78% of the user base is InStyle’s target demographic, average time spent is 7 min, with over 50% of total users returning to the application more than 25 times and an average user did 3 hair styles.

Found on Francois Gossieaux’ Emergence Marketing blog a few weeks ago:

Most breakthrough innovations happen at the edges or at the intersections of various disciplines.

Yep. At least half of that statement goes hand in hand with the cross-pollination I have talked about in the past on the brandbuilder blog. Cross-pollination usually happens when two worker bees with completely different backgrounds and experiences meet, learn from each other, and start applying the new insights they have learned from each other to improve the way they work. Cross pollination doesn’t just introduce new ideas and methodologies into otherwise rigid systems, they transform them. In this transformation is the catalyst of any organization’s evolution, whether it is a marketing group, a product design group, or an entire corporation.

Take this simple process as an example:

Same methodology + same methodology + same methodology + same methodology = same methodology.

This type of closed model creates no opportunity for innovation. Companies who get stuck in this type of monotheistic mentality remain the same year after year. The world around them changes, evolves, moves on, but they trudge along. Their occasional innovation play involves acquiring smaller companies with once innovative products, but their timing usually misses the mark. Symptoms: Eroding market share, eroding margins, difficulty in recruiting and retaining top talent, and growth by acquisitions rather than market penetration. Nothing wrong with that model, but it just isn’t the best way to go about building a truly solid brand in any industry.

The alternative process looks more like this:

Same methodology + new methodology + infusion of cross-cultural/interdisciplinary insights = transformation + evolution.

Bring a design engineer from the automotive industry and ask him to work with a mobile phone designer and watch what happens to mobile phone designs within six months. Also watch what happens to dashboard designs when the automotive designer goes back to his car factory.

Pair a brand planner from the fashion world and a marketing honcho from the IT world (yes, they do exist) and watch how their cross-pollination of ideas and insights transforms the way they approach their work.

Cross-pollination gets companies and individuals out of their routines. It expands their horizons. It opens new doors, new possibilities, new directions for companies willing to embrace proactive change - the kind of change that yields results, not only on Wall Street, but also in the hearts and minds of the people who will either embrace their brands’ fresh new energy, or eventually reject their inability to remain relevant in an increasingly commoditized and fickle world.

I have heard it said that going through the same motions over and over again and expecting a different result every time (or every quarter, as it were) is the definition of madness. Fair enough. The question that begs asking then is: How is this different from companies with repetitive strategy syndrome expecting improvements in market share, revenue growth, brand relevance and customer loyalty?

Most breakthrough innovations happen at the edges or at the intersections of various disciplines.

Fact: People outside of your industry have the solution to the problem you can’t figure out how to fix.

Fact: You have the solution to the problem that someone in a completely different industry is struggling with.

Fact: Without cross-pollination of some sort, neither problem is likely to be solved anytime soon, especially not by you.

Without the (at least occasional) cross-pollination of ideas, innovation happens much more slowly or doesn’t happen at all. Innovation isn’t about inventing the wheel out of divine inspiration; innovation is about finding the principle of the wheel outside of your normal environment (looking for inspiration away from your desk or cubicle), and applying the insight gained from this contact with somewhat random experience to addressing the problem at hand.

Neither cross-pollination of ideas nor innovation ever happen in a vacuum. Companies which actively foster cultures of innovation will always see tremendous growth. Companies which instead favor cultures of assimilation will continue to churn and puff and trudge along until their bloated carcasses are pushed out of the way by yesterday’s “little guys.” It’s just the way of the world. Evolution is inevitable. Evolution doesn’t care how relevant you were yesterday. Evolution happens because some entities adapt to change while others prefer to exist in a state of denial, thinking that what has worked for the last ten, twenty or thirty years will continue to work ten years down the road.

Jack Spade once said “Never believe anything you have done is successful.” Solid advice if you ask me.

Inject some cultural diversity into your workforce: Recruit creatively, across various disciplines and industries. Internally, create multi-discipline work groups to work on special projects or design concepts. Revamp your customer service. Question the effectiveness of your packaging or messaging or web design. Engage with your customers. Embrace and foster their communities. Create better means of listening to what they needs are, and find renewed purpose in delivering on their requests. Leverage diversity in every layer of your organization to do this. Whatever needs to be changed, change, especially if that change is difficult. Rip complacency and old habits to shreds, and upgrade every aspect of whatever methodology or system you have pounded into a stalled routine over the course of the last five to ten years.

“Change the world or go home” starts with you and your organization.

File Sharing is very binary – either you share a file online or you don’t.

Well not anymore! – enter Drop.io.

Drop.io allows consumers to create their own private online spaces where they can easily and privately share photos, videos, documents, and other types of media with others. By default, drops are “private” - consumers control how and with whom drops are shared. Drop.io never requires any type of account registration, and all drops can be password-protected and set to expire after a period of time. Drop.io provides multiple methods of sharing content - by uploading through the Web site, sending email or MMS messages to the drop email address, faxing assets in and out, or by calling the drop voicemail number to leave a voice notes.

Hear what Chad Stoller has to say about how marketers’ should be using Drop.io externally as well as internally.

About Chad

Prior to joining drop.io, Stoller was Executive Director of Emerging Platforms at Organic, a marketing and communications company, where he led Organic’s strategy for new communication platforms, including social networking, mobile, gaming, meta-verse, geo-data applications and location-based services. In addition to developing strategies for Organic, Chad worked directly on emerging platform programs for leading brands like Chrysler Corporation, Bank of America, Fox Entertainment, NBC and Sprint.

Stoller began his career as a media planner and developer for fashion experience at Arnell Group, where he worked on such brands as Ray-Ban, Banana Republic, Donna Karen and Samsung. Subsequently, he co-founded Surge Interactive, the interactive division of Arnell Group, where he led interactive brand strategies for Universal Music Group, Tommy Hilfiger, Clear Channel, among others. Stoller returned to Arnell Group five years later in the newly created role of Director, Communications Solutions and was responsible for such brands as McDonalds, Siemens, Reebok, DaimlerChrysler and others.

 

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