Security Issues

Hi everyone! I hope everyone has had a great weekend so far. Now it’s time to turn our attention to those people out there who like to make other peoples lives a living hell by infecting their computers with viruses or getting their passwords somehow, or even somehow getting into their banking information!

I don’t think there is a huge difference between generations or national groups when it comes to understanding privacy, confidentiality, and security. Everyone has an innate feeling that privacy, confidentiality and security are all things people should be entitled too and therefore most people feel the same about it. However, the problem is that there are people out there who enjoy the thrill of being able to access anyone’s personal information, and also using people’s personal details for personal gain.

There are several critical Internet security issues everyone needs to be aware of. Some of these include viruses, identity theft, spam, and spyware. More importantly for business owners, they need to assure that hackers don’t get into their system and corrupt it with any kinds of viruses. They need to also make sure their customer information is safe and secure so that personal information does not fall into the wrong hands. Identity theft has been a growing trend in recent years and has caused several problems for so many people.

Businesses have a huge responsibility in providing a safe and secure environment for transactions, as well as for customer information. First and foremost, for any business to become truly successful, you need to assure your customers that their information is secure and safe. If you provide them with this, they are more likely to come back and do business with you in the future.

These responsibilities and security issues can be met by assuring you have an IT department that is up to date with all the newest security concerns. Furthermore, it might beneficial to make your employees aware of any malicious spyware and viruses that are crawling around the web and to not click any link that might seem suspicious. If you have a security department that makes clear the issues that are out there, companies should be somewhat safer.
~Until Next Time~
WIM

Websites: The Face of an Organization

The website I have chosen to analyze is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site whose purpose is to offer millions of people around the world the ability to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.  
Until recently, Facebook was typically used for personal use but with the sudden increase in popularity of social media, Facebook has been turned into a great resource for companies to market themselves by creating Facebook "Fan" pages where they can interact with their customers the same way any other person can interact on their personal profiles. The fan pages do come with some perks but it has become one of the most popular mediums for companies to take advantage of.  
Facebook has certainly achieved its "purpose" with people all over the world uploading photos constantly to Facebook of their travels or family outings or even their night's out with friends. Furthermore, it has provided businesses the ability to develop bonds with their consumers like never before.
As many of you probably know, Facebook is structured in a way that is tailored to you. A recent redesign of Facebook has allowed them to better serve their customers. The home screen gives you access to a "Top News" feed and a "Most Recent" news feed. Additionally, the left hand column gives you easy access to your messages, your applications, as well as your photos. The right hand side of the homepage is filled with "suggestions" that Facebook recommends to you based on your profile information. Lastly, the right hand side also has ads that Facebook has been able to make money through.
Facebook certainly serves it's customers effectively. Facebook is quick to listen to user feedback whenever something gets rolled out and is always sure to change anything that might not be working. Facebook is unique because it acts somewhat like an e-mail client by giving you the chance to send messages to your friends Facebook profiles or individual e-mail addresses. This next topic can be argued but one way Facebook serves their customers is the ability to suggest friends you may not have known were on Facebook or the option of reconnecting with a friend you haven't been interacting with. From my experience, the people they recommend I reconnect with or add as friends I don't really care for so I wouldn't mind if they just got rid of that feature or gave us the ability to hide that.
Facebook is not made up of too many graphics, but mostly text. The only graphics you will see are either from applications or profile pictures or even just the Facebook logo. The marketing and sales principles of Facebook is certainly made up of various e-business features. Currently Facebook is having a hard time trying to find out how they can begin to create money. There are talks of Facebook offering a "Facebook Gold" account where members can pay for an upgraded version of Facebook but with some perks, all rumors though. Facebook relies on most of their marketing online, but with the boom in social media, you have probably seen Facebook ads like the Verizon Fios commercial where it tells you that you can now update your Facebook status from your TV (because we all know that the computer, the iphone, the BlackBerry, and the ipod touch aren't enough platforms to update your status right? :) ). Some features that Facebook uses to make money is through advertisements that appear on the side panels, as well as allowing users to buy small virtual gifts to send to other friends.
Some things I would currently change about Facebook is giving the current design a small tweak. Currently it features a frame on the left as well as a horizontal frame at the top of the browser. Currently if you move anywhere away from the homepage you lose the left panel. I would recommend Facebook to keep the left panel constantly available and only let the center of the screen change. By doing this, it allows the user to have access to messages, photos, videos by just one click. The other change I would recommend, is giving users more control of the look of their profile. I would like to have the ability to change the theme of my profile or move the panels around as I please.  
If any other recommendations come to mind I will let you know but in the mean time I would love to hear anyone else's recommendations for Facebook!
~Until Next Time~
WIM
Enjoy!

Appropriate Technological Infrastructure

A good process to identify and match a company’s technological infrastructure to its organizational mission is determining how much your business relies on IT. For example, if you work for an organization whose mission is to strive for a better environment, like the World Wildlife Fund, you would research IT infrastructure that could be used by the organization to reduce its carbon footprint.

WWF Environmental Policy: “Good environmental practices in the way we work go hand in hand with our mission to protect the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which human needs are met in harmony with nature. WWF strives to make the best choices to ensure that the activities we conduct in pursuit of our mission demonstrate care for the environment. To this end we are committed to examining our impacts on the environment and finding alternatives to improve on our performance. Exercising care and showing leadership to reduce our environmental impacts in the workplace are valuable assets in our efforts to promote environmental stewardship worldwide.”
A good process to match a company’s technological infrastructure to its e-business process is to make sure your company has the necessary technological components to maintain an e-business. This requires top management to invest in the newest technology to guarantee success. For example, something Amazon should look into is shipping their products within 24 hours, and this way they maintain a competitive edge over their other competitors.
A good process to match a company’s technological infrastructure to its operational needs is to make sure the space is big enough to handle the infrastructure it requires. An example of this would be a trading floor. In order for it to work, you need a large open space with multiple computers per person. Additionally, you need to have space for all the equipment needed to make everything operate.
Common errors include not investing in proper technology that result in system failures. Additional errors include companies refusing to invest in better technologies and rather remaining with the status quo. These types of errors can be avoided by having a management team that is aware of upcoming developments in new technology as well as keeping a close eye on competitors and seeing if they are doing anything different that you could benefit from.
~Until Next Time~
WIM

Models and Concepts

The company I have selected as a good “role” model of ebusiness is Netflix. Netflix has “more than 11 million subscribers and is the world’s largest subscription service streaming movies and TV episodes over the Internet and sending DVDs by mail” (http://www.netflix.com).

What makes Netflix stellar is the fact that they have single handedly destroyed the traditional way of renting movies. Blockbuster has already adopted an online rental service and is looking to close their stores. What made renting from Blockbuster annoying was the fact that you could only have the movie for a limited number of days and if you had it longer you had to pay a late fee. With Netflix, not only do you just pay a fixed amount at the beginning of each month but you also have no late fees! A new feature Netflix recently launched was the ability to stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix right to member’s TVs through the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii.

The strengths Netflix has as an ebusiness is that it comes equipped with a recommendation system that suggests movies based on your ratings. It easily discovers movies that you may not have watched and recommends them to you. Another strength Netflix has is that it offers customers the ability to choose how many DVDs they want delivered and for a different price. Furthermore, whichever subscription method you choose, you have the opportunity to watch an unlimited number of movies each month for that price.

The limitations Netflix has as an ebusiness is that since they don’t have an actual physical store front, customers send their movies back in the mail, and the problem with this is that the postal service is sometimes very slow, and sometimes the DVD might get damaged in transit and therefore Netflix has to replace it.

Some improvements Netflix could look to make is offering customers the choice to rent HD movies, without having to pay extra. Another improvement would be to change their current website into more of a social network where they can build friends and recommend movies to each other, sort of like a Facebook for Netflix. I wouldn’t suggest too many improvements but I would warn them to watch out for more online movie streaming sources as that is becoming more and more popular these days,

There are several essential qualities of a successful ebusiness, and those are its ability to ship products to its customers in an efficient manner, a secure connection so that customers can purchase items through the website and not have to worry about security. Also, the ability to adapt to the ongoing changes that occur on the Internet, and have a long term strategy for continued success. Furthermore, with the current trend of Web 2.0, a successful ebusiness would give customers the ability to interact with the website.
~Until Next Time~
WIM

Socio-Technical Organizations

Sorry about the delay of this post, but for some reason or another I have had some trouble logging onto Blackboard these past few days, and today it wasn’t working at all. I would like to first begin by saying that this is probably one of the biggest problems facing many companies that are based solely online. The threat of your consumers not being able to connect to your website would result in significant losses and possibly some backlash. Luckily, this was just a Blackboard posting, but whoever said that wasn’t important either? ;) 

I would define a socio-technical organization as one that provides workers with the tools needed to grow in the skills, knowledge, and abilities to become successful within an organization. Additionally, for an organization to become successful, they need to make sure that technology is an integral part of their core strategy, but also remember that without proper social interaction or communication, the organization will not function smoothly.

Business enterprises weave human resources and technological applications into one system by using new technology to find new applicants. As a result of the Internet, businesses have been given the unique opportunity to further their brand presence online and tell people why that company is such a great place to work. Additionally, companies are able to post job openings on the companies website, or even onto some of the several job portals. Furthermore, with the existence of social networking, businesses are able to communicate with interested applicants before they even think about applying for any positions!

Current businesses are a mix of “brick-and-mortar” and online applications. This mix didn’t always exist; Internet marketing was almost non-existent about a decade ago. However, in today’s world you would almost be foolish if you did not incorporate the Internet into your business model. Some businesses can’t just operate their business solely online, and require an actual storefront. However, with the emergence of e-commerce, many consumers are doing all their shopping and searching online, and as a result this has forced many businesses to have an online presence.

E-business and E-commerce principles are inter-related and incorporated into many business models. E-commerce is defined as the “use of the Internet and the web to transact business” (http://ezinearticles.com/?id=2002483) However, e-business is defined as the “digital enablement of transactions and process within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm” (Ibid). As a result, the bond between e-business and e-commerce occurs when there is an exchange of value.

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Beginning to think about e-business

So as a way to sort of use what I have been doing in school to this site is to start combining things.  I'm taking an e-business class that requires us to write posts on a variety of topics. As exciting as its been to receive comments from class members I thought it would be great to let everyone else who is interested to write down some of their comments (if any) to some of the posts I have been writing in class.  So here goes! The first post as you can see is titled "Beginning to think about e-business"

Enjoy...

"E-commerce has grown rapidly in the last decade, but the popularity of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace has grown tremendously over the last few years. I’m very excited to learn more about E-commerce and how I can effectively use what I learn to my own personal endeavors. I would say that I have been actively participating on the online world for quite some time. I currently work on two websites, the first one being Development Crossing (http://www.developmentcrossing.com), and the second one being World in Motion (http://www.thewim.com). To conclude, I would say that by taking this course I would like to learn more about how I can take these websites and generate money with them.

There are several reasons why the “Dot-Com” ventures and “virtual businesses” failed according to the two articles found under the virtual knowledge commons section in Blackboard. Some of the reasons include a general economic recession during this period, findings of corporate corruption, and the subsequent bankruptcy, at several large companies, including a few large technology companies, and lastly the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Additionally, most of the “Dot Bomb’s” presented unproven, theoretical models to the banks for the IPO’s. They had never shown a profit and never would because the models they used simply could not work. Therefore, when the bottom fell out of the Internet advertising market, the companies whose business models were based on selling advertising on their sites or in their networks were the first losers. 

As with any failure, you always seem to learn something after it’s all said and done, and fortunately we learned a few lessons and principles from this initial experiment in online business. According to the Ezine article on “Learning the Lessons of the Dot-Bomb Era” the first lesson we learned was that we must establish our business on a business model that can be profitable at low volumes before we can even hope to be profitable at high volumes. The secret to online profits is not cash, but rather a solid business model. The second lesson we learned was that as a small business owner, we can and must remain flexible. Especially in an untested and unproven market, we need to sustain our flexibility and keep our focus on the bottom line and the marketplace, but most importantly never to fear change. Lastly, remember to take whatever means are necessary to track the successes and failures in your advertising and always watch your bottom line. This is the most important thing to take note of if you wish for your online business to be profitable.

The above lessons have already been applied to 21st century business models, if they haven’t they should probably get on that!  For example, the success of Facebook and MySpace wasn’t just by accident, and they weren’t brand new ideas. Earlier social media sites like Friendster, Hi5, and Bebo all started off with a large follower base but MySpace and Facebook saw their limitations and gave the public more control of what they could do with their own personal pages. However, smaller social media sites are now beginning to grow after seeing what works. Furthermore, using Facebook as an example, continues to grow at a rapid pace. It used to be that only college students could sign up for a Facebook account but now anyone around the world with access to the Internet can create an account. Additionally, businesses have been able to take advantage of Facebook by creating Facebook Fan pages that allow businesses and their customers to interact in a way like never before.

   There are several trends we will see in 2010 regarding e-business. The first trend is search engine optimization. As we have seen more and more, consumers want more personalized search results and this means search engines will be looking for more relevant and personalized content from publishers and brands. The second trend we will see is social media marketing. The reason marketers love social media is because you have access to so many people. Smaller businesses will look to use social media much more in 2010 to grow their business. Lastly, a third trend you will see is blogging. Blogging continues to become more and more popular, and you will see more businesses create their own blogs with relevant news about what is happening at their company."

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Social Media Authority: Measuring and Improving Online Influence

FRIDAY.  Any BIG plans for the weekend?  I love Friday's.  Even better since that today Finland is taking on the US in Ice Hockey for a chance to play for gold or silver!  

COME ON FINLAND!!!!

Besides that, I wanted to post about what I did yesterday.  I had the unique opportunity to participate in a social media webinar.  Being strapped for time I quickly logged on and went to the first presentation by Brian Halligan (@bhalligan).  I can't possibly post about everything he talked about but the topic of his presentation was "Social Media Authority: Measuring and Improving Online Influence"

 

Brian Halligan

So let me go over some of the things I quickly wrote down.  If you are interested in increasing your online influence, the one thing to focus on is increase the amount of remarkable content you put out.  He recommended us to engage in activities in a variety of "watering holes" that are on the web.  For example, the ones he pointed out that were the best were "LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo! Answers, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Foursquare, Digg and Reddit."  

So lets put that into an easy to remember equation:

More Online Influence = Your Brand/Company + # Of Watering Holes

Got it?

Yeahhhh you doooo.

So..how do we measure influence? Easy! It is a Fx(Reach, Attention, Spread) 

Now how do you find influencers you say? Well thats easy...you want to make sure your brand, your Twitter handle, your LinkedIn account, whatever it may be provides enough influence to influence others in retweeting or sharing your information!  Now, Brian gave us a great resource as to determine the influence your Twitter account has online! Visit Twitter Grader and just enter your Twitter name and watch it spit out some information.  During the presentation @cymbalmark Tweeted me with a better resource called Klout.  Both were great resources so I recommend you guys check out both!

Anyways, something that Brian said during his presentation has really stuck with me.  He recommended companies to encourage their employers to Tweet, to start blogs, to start pretty much creating some kind of influence online.  Also, funny enough...to HIRE people who Tweet and who Blog because if your company is lucky enough to find people with a large follower base or with a large online influence, you could use them to market your brand or your products to the follower base they have already set up.  I thought that was a great thing to say because there are several companies who are only just starting to Tweet and finding it difficult to build a large follower base.  So if you have someone who has already built a large follower base, you could use them as a valuable resource in your company.  

Now I'm going to finish off this post with two other things that I found very interesting.  First being:

"Don't Pimp Your Product"

More than just a funny quote it does hold a tremendous amount of meaning.  When you are online, don't always talk about your company or your products, remember to show some love for all the other people out there and if you do that you are sure to increase your online presence.

And LASTLY, apparently the best time to Tweet is at 4PM on a FRIDAY.  So upon reading this post, I want everyone to Tweet this at 4PM today and EVERY other day if you don't get a chance to read this post today!  Now, in reference to 4PM I found it pretty funny that the time 4:00 came up, now this is because one of my favorite TED videos is "Rives about 4 AM" (Watch the video below) 

 It might not be 4AM but again, 4:00 o'clock sure does get a lot of press.

Please comment, share, and express your views! I would love to hear anyones opinions about the above posting or if anyone has any other great resources we should know about!!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

When the FBI raids your Brand

That's right, what happens when the FBI raids your brand? If you are still incredulous about the possibility then I invite you to continue reading.

Last night, the FBI raided three suppliers of Toyota's parts in search for documents pertaining to "antitrust violations and hiding quality problems." The news hit the wire early this morning and is still sending chills down readers' spines.

Its a huge blow for Toyota ...what comes next? Toyota failed to address this issue properly from its inception and its been snowballing down a very steep and dangerous brand slope. Desperate measures are needed to rescue consumers' perception of Toyota - not soon but now.

theWIM will continue following this incident and track the brand fallout that could pursue. We welcome your thoughts!

'til next time!'

-APL

Twitter Engagement Among Companies

Bonjour!  Decided to throw in a little French greeting into this post to remind myself that I need to go back and review!  Great language to learn, anyone have any helpful guides I could download?  I've been meaning to try out one of those podcasts iTunes sells but don't know if it would be worth the money...any recommendations?

So the topic I wanted to go into today is about Twitter engagement among companies.  I make it a priority to always follow everyone back, and always respond to any @Reply that is sent over my way.  The one thing I don't do often is respond to DM's.  I find that DM's are almost all spam, and so I tend to just delete them without any hesitation.

What I have noticed while being on Twitter, and following a variety of companies is that there are several companies out there that advertise that they are on Twitter but do nothing in terms of engagement.  Not to name any company specifically but what I have noticed is that some companies just use the "Twitterfeed" application to automatically Tweet the latest news that comes off their website.  I'm not saying this is a bad thing but I could just as easily go to your website and take your RSS feed and just save that to Google Reader and BOOM I have an identical feed of your account.

Now, like I said this isn't a bad thing...I do the same thing for WIM just because I like to get my latest posts out onto the web.  But for companies to just rely on Twitterfeed and say that they actively use Twitter is a small lie.  All I'm really asking is to see some kind of engagement on your profile with other users!  Show me that there is someone behind that damn logo of yours.

Ok, so that was first thing I wanted to discuss.  Now, lets move onto Followers.  I understand it must be a pain to always accept people, but guess what?  You joined the social media game, so why not play it?  It's annoying to see companies with a MASSIVE follower base but only following say....20 people.

That tells me that you don't care about the people who follow you, and you don't honestly believe that whatever you are trying to do through this social media platform is working.  Show some kind of meaningful connection with your followers so that they know there is a person behind that damn logo again.  It really isn't that difficult...tools exist that allow you to automatically follow or unfollow large groups of people.  SO THERE IS NO EXCUSE!

So to finish this post off, how can companies say they use Twitter when they show no kind of involvement?

 If someone out there knows why companies don't often engage enough with their followers or just can't be bothered to show that they follow others please let me know!!  Lastly, if anyone knows companies that are guilty of what I just talked about, leave a link to their Twitter account and I would be happy to feature a list of those companies people feel that need to be doing a better job!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Starbucks VIA Taste Test

I hope everyones weekend is off to a good start!  I actually woke up early this morning and went out for a 13.1 mile run!! I have to say I'm pretty exhausted.  Anyhow, I wanted to post our first YouTube video!  I actually took this video over the summer, and I'm sure many of you remember but it is from the Starbucks VIA taste test.  I took the challenge myself but unfortunately I lost! haha.  Though...I do have my theory about their little taste test, so if any of you out there took the VIA taste test please leave your comments below or on the YouTube video itself!  Soooo what I think Starbucks did was water down the "real" coffee so that the VIA tasted a lot stronger than the regular coffee.  Did anyone else feel the same?

Here is the video:

Keep an eye out for more videos from World in Motion and don't forget to subscribe!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

The Making of a Man

While taking a break from the massive operation that packing up my house has taken, I found some very cool clips about one of the best commercials from the SuperBowl.

Created by Weiden + Kennedy, "The Man your Man Could Smell Like" clip has been racking up the views on YouTube and televisions. Its very funny and clever, I really enjoyed how the guy strolls into every situation like it was nothing..

Awesome work by the W+K team, and as a special treat I found a "making-of" video that showcases the tremendous effort undergone to produce this in 3 days! Check out both videos below.

And, below the making of the video - we're looking to make this part of our weekly video series.

Its back to packing for me but the next few days I'll try to get these posts up early in the morning for you guys to have throughout your day!

'til next time!'

-APL

Group Think: When it comes to what we say we like, often we're just following the herd

Gooood evening! So I'm pretty excited that one of my fellow countrymen (Peetu Piiroinen) just gave Finland its first medal of the Olympics with a silver in snowboarding! Woohoo!

Anyhow back to more important matters.  I was reading through a recent article in Wired by a guy called Clive Thompson.  He wrote an interesting piece on the idea of Group Think, and whether or not we can persuade someone to like a product by simply telling them it's popular.  According to the article "it seems clear that we're often just sheep."  As marketers, this is our primary job, we need to be able to convince a certain group of consumers why they need our product and then rely on them to tell their friends about that product in order to create this huge snowball effect.  

Thompson goes on to make the argument that "Madonna is famous because she's uniquely talented.  You could counterargue that she's just lucky: She got picked up by the right label at the right time, and enough people glommed onto her."  I found this particularly interesting because I just finished a book called Outliers, where Malcolm Gladwell talks about just this phenomenon.  Using this example Thompson gave, we could state that Madonna is an outlier due to her significantly "lucky" circumstances that happened at the "right" time.  What if the events didn't play out the way they did?  Obviously Madonna wouldn't be Madonna as we know her today.

Anyways, to test out an idea, Duncan Watts a "network theory pioneer and scientist at Yahoo and Columbia University" and Mathew Salganik created a "music downloading Web site.  They uploaded 48 songs by unknown bands and got people to log in to the site, listen to the songs, then rate and download them."  Users of the site were able to see each others rankings, were "influenced in roughly the same way self-fulfilling prophecies are supposed to work.  That meant some tunes could become hits-and others duds-partly because of social pressure."  These guys tried this out over and over again until they had 12,900 participants, and the result of their work was that "different songs were hits with different groups."

So, do you think it's possible to think something is popular when it isn't? They took the rankings of one group and the songs that they used in the experiment with them and inverted them so bottom ranked music was now at the top.  Then they gave these rankings to a fresh set of listeners.  What ended up happening is that they essentially told these new participants that the songs that were unpopular with the original group, were actually the popular songs.  What they found with this experiment was that 

"flat out lying works"

With all this said, it doesn't shine a good light on marketers.  As I mentioned earlier, we try our best to promote our product...our brand...whatever it may be but what I've noticed is that marketers spit out all kinds of material to consumers trying to get them to buy certain products. 

 How much of this stuff is actually true? Is any of it? Or is it all just a load of bs?  This article presents a "cautionary tale to marketers: If you lie about the merits of your product, you might suppress demand across your entire sector."

I would love to hear your thoughts on the idea of group think and whether or not we are able to convince people something is one thing when it actually isn't.  With that said is that really fair?

~Until Next Time~

WIM

Ongoing Competition

A while back, theWIM posted about an on-going "friendly" feud between Audi and BMW. Its brewing to become quite a legend for prosperity because they continue to devise clever ways of taking swipes at each other. Reference #1

As consumers, we can only sit back and enjoy the ongoing raillery. Today I feature two new spots from Audi who contest their leader position in the luxury automobile market. Call it engineering, design, or simply who has the wittiest creative this side of town - regardless it's a win win battle between these two.

The first spot by Audi pays tribute to the never-ending friendly rivalry between human beings. Since our birth we subliminally fixate ourselves to duke it out over friendly competitions. That's why I like this ad, its funny and witty... playful way of saying, so long suckers!

The second spot I can't say I'm a huge fan of simply because its quite unremarkable yet very well executed. It gets the message across, yet maybe if they had not played game to the trendy "droll-rant" being used by different campaigns at the moment. They could have turned out something exceptional like the video above.

Despite my critique of the second video. I know both will do well with viewers. One makes you laugh the other one tells you what to do. Lets see what BMW has to say about this!

'til next time!'

-APL

Vitaminwater: Engage yourself with the Olympic Games in Vancouver!

So I have been trying to watch the Olympics these days without having the results already given to me by some other source because guess what?  NBC refuses to show live coverage of the Olympics but would rather show it during primetime.  The only sports they seem to be showing live is either Hockey or some kind of ice skating.  I don't see why NBC doesn't just show live coverage throughout the day, this is the Olympics!  This is a time where the best athletes from around the world come together to compete, and not just the ones you like to watch...NBC. 

Anyways, that's enough about that!  Let's move onto something else that caught my eye as I was perusing the web for something great to post.  I came across this great campaign from Vitaminwater, where a clever group of people from a Cleveland-based ad agency called Brokaw decided to bring the Olympics to the people of Vancouver in a more unique way.  Brokaw designed 3-D bus shelters for downtown Vancouver.

Brokaw "transformed the shelter into a ski lift, a move that recalls a stunt that Venture Communications pulled on behalf of Ski Alberta in 2008." (BrandFreak)  Some other ads you might see along the streets of Vancouver include "Olympic athletes in Vitaminwater's typically jocular style. "Don't try challenging Michael Lambert, reads one, referring to the Canadian snowboarder. "You'll lose. Even in your imagination." (BrandFreak). 

This is a great campaign, and from taking a look at Brokaw's website, they certainly held true to their promise, they helped Vitaminwater rise above the "blah blah", and reaffirmed the point that it doesn't take a huge agency to do great work but rather "a little Brokaw" will help your brand do hugely impactful work.

I really like the idea of bringing the Olympics to the people.  Not only does this create great buzz, but the Olympics as well as Vitaminwater get a great deal of attention with this campaign.  I can only imagine the people waiting for their next bus as one of their friends takes a creative photo of them while they sit on the lift!  Even better, the people at Vitaminwater could set up a group of people stationed at particular bus stops that give bus goers the option of getting a photo with the ski lift and then have the option to send it like a digital postcard! How cool would that be? Alright I need to stop rambling but cool no?

Check out the pic below for what I'm talking about! 

Anyways, now it's your turn!  Anyone think I'm being too harsh about the lack of Olympic coverage? Anyone not like this campaign?  Please, feel free to comment but remember be gentle!

Until Next Time

~WIM~

Social Networks: When is your audience big enough?

Man..Dwight Howard can JUMP!  I'm actually in the middle of watching the Spurs take on the Nuggets on TNT but nothing spectacular going on, looks like the Spurs are going to pull this off.  I wish I could jump that high, but after watching White Men Can't Jump it just hasn't been the same. 

Anyways, I wanted to post on a thought that came to me today.  WIM recently reached 2,000 Followers on Twitter, and as much as this excites me, I couldn't help but think when is big too big? Throughout our life we have always been told bigger is better am I correct? Well what value do you get from an online community of 20,000 Twitter followers or 10,000 Facebook fans besides the gratitude of having that nice BIG number next to your username? See..I bet you are already attracted to the fact I wrote big in caps!  

What I'm getting at is, what if you have this large follower base but only a small portion of those followers engage with you within those sites? What does that give you? Nothing. How different are you from the fan page with only 100 Facebook Fans but almost all of them engage with that page.  In this example, I think I would rather have the fan page with the small number of fans rather than the larger number of fans.  

My reasoning behind this is because people join these networks because they want to feel part of something, and when your follower base becomes too large that person begins to lose his/her place within that page. Once a member of a small tight knit group of fans, is now a small fish in a tank full of bigger fish, or sharks or turtles or whatever animal you might want to refer too haha, but don't get me wrong, these other animals are aggressive and want to be the alpha dog.  As a side effect that person feels less important as they once felt and might begin to look for other communities!

Anyways, this was just something that crossed my mind today and would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!  In the mean time, World in Motion isn't going to consider this for now haha, but rather is  looking to grow their fan base (ironic haha).  

So with that said, I'm going to present you with some options:

Do you Tweet? Then follow us on Twitter

Do you Facebook? Then become a fan on Facebook

Do you Buzzzzz?  Then Buzz us on Google

Do you YouTube? Then hmm..YouTube us? That works for now: YouTube

Do you Yahoo? Then join our Yahoo Community

Alright, in the mean time, remember to post your comments and I encourage everyone to follow WIM on whatever platform you like using! 

~Until Next Time~

WIM

When Golden Ads Get Stolen by Bad Creatives

The man knows not what sequins is. Trite?? Of course! But first let me give you the contextual frame of my critique. A couple months ago, I came across a brilliant series of ads for Dos XX. These ads portrayed what its like to be the 'world's most interesting man' - very clever ads, hilarious for the most part and functional.

Why?? Because this viral campaign garnished the sales crew at Dos XX at least a couple of sleepless nights calculating the flood of revenue. How it became succesful by proper diffusion via social networks and social media sites. Today it stands as a great success that established a brand icon for the ages.

Back to the word trite. I used trite because some hot shot creative over at French Connection decided it'd be genius to portray a look-a-like Dos XX dude to sport the attitude of its clothing. The video is directed in the same fashion as the Dos XX spot, however for me it lacks the panazz that created the success of the first and original Dos XX man.

And now for the original...

I'll have to stand the harshness of time and social media to see if I'm right or wrong. But I do respect the authenticity of a brand icon and being a little more creative than having to borrow from it. At least have him hold a Dos XX!

This is my first critique, be gentle but do leave your thoughts!

'til next time!'

-APL

Bob Garfield Reviews the Super Bowl Spots

No, he doesn't contribute to WIM and he probably doesn't even know WIM exists (Maybe one day?), but one thing he does do is review the latest Super Bowl commercials.  So take this opportunity and watch his insights into what he thought about the commercials you saw at this years Super Bowl!

~Until Next Time~

WIM

How the Game will be Measured

I'm not a huge fan of basketball and calling myself a big fan would still be overdoing it. But that doesn't detract me from recognizing some of the great work brands are collaborating on with its superstars.

Take the ad campaign down below by Adidas. To embellish the skills of superman Dwight Howard, they produced a YouTube channel showcasing various videos where a user can make him faster, lighter and stronger.

The video itself is quite remarkable. I believe he jumps 15 feet to dunk that ball and from my personal experience on a b-ball court - that's ridiculous! Regardless this young athlete imposes himself upon glory in triumphant stride afoot his TS Supernatural pumps. Here goes...

Awesome job with the video and making it interactive via YouTube. Look forward to more initiatives such as this one. Check out the video above and this link to take you straight to the channel.

'til next time!'

-APL

The Favs

I hope you all enjoyed the last post, a little fun needed to be had. And I'll start the week of with an editorial review of my favorite SuperBowl Ads.

It's always fun to throw around links the day after the game in case you might have missed a very good ad. In my case, I missed out on one of my favs brought to us by Doritos. I haven't seen a slap that great since Rockn'Rolla's Archie Slap but here goes...

And continuing on with the slap stick humor comes my second favorite ad produced by the Late Night Show with David Letterman. We find a disgruntled Leno, Letterman and Oprah watching the game in very tense conditions. Love it! (I would have loved to see a Conan appearance as well)

I give all three 5 stars; however, this last one gets special commendation for its relevancy, simplicity and effectiveness. Produced by the people over at Google (I believe its the first time Google puts out an ad?) we get a glimpse into the timeline of a 'Googler'. It demostrates how Google has changed the way we search for things in life and how simple and functional their service to users is. Without further delay, here it is...

What do you guys think of these ads? Give me some feedback and please link some of your favorite commercials. Maybe I missed another one!

'until next time!'

-APL

We give you the choice...

Today we present a special kind of post to commence the week by making the right kinds of decisions and changes over at WIM. We start by giving you the choice, to speak up and be heard. Not heard by one, not by four but by all. We start by turning that dream into a vision for tomorrow.

This post was made possible by the people of Sweeden (Yes, each and every one of you Swedes made this possible.) As you can see, the Swedish have already mobilized their society and got their World in Motion. ;)

'stay tuned for more!'

-WIM & APL

Get your dog some... Doggie Dentures?!

Good Friday Everyone! Being a dog lover and it having been a long week, I thought what better way to start the weekend off with a lively and entertaining campaign brought to us by Pedigree.

"As a kid my imagination knew very few limits. Unfortunately for my poor dog, this meant everything ranging from sporting a lego brick helmet to skate-like bootie contraptions to kamikaze sleigh rides. Yes, he endured them all and somehow managed to remain my loyal companion throughout the years..." -APL

And one has to praise companies like Pedigree who embrace that spirit and give people a reason to laugh and play with their dogs while educating them on the importance of their health. So while it must seem like just an entertaining gimmick from the creatives over at Purina. I still believe these types of campaigns work on a very emotional level that no ROI metric can measure.

Make sure to check out the Pedigree site, or forward it to your friends because it's definitely worth a visit. I'm sharing an image I made of my fanged buddy for everyone to see.

I'll leave you with that. Enjoy your weekend and do spend time playing with your furry friends.

'til next time!'

-APL

Let the Lindsey hype begin: Vonn is Sports Illustrated cover girl

Ok seriously....this needs to stop.  I was reading over a recent Yahoo article that talks about Lindsey Vonn, "America's great Winter Olympic hope" and her recent photo in Sports Illustrated.  Anyways, I got slightly frustrated after reading this excerpt from womentalksports.com: 

"Vonn is first a GREAT athlete, but she also represents norm of feminine attractiveness. The combination of athleticism and attractiveness make Vonn the likely poster girl of the US Olympic Team, and the media hasn't disappointed in constructed her as such.

Not to be left out, Sports Illustrated is featuring Vonn on their Feb. 8, 2010 cover. For those of you who follow SI Covers, know that female athletes are RARELY featured on the cover.

Over the last 60 years researchers have shown that about 4% of all SI covers have portrayed women.

When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action-and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception"

The image in question is this: 

Everyone these days is looking to find something to complain about and the people from womentalksports are seriously going slightly too far.  They mention that over the last 60 years research has shown that about 4% of all SI covers have portrayed women...well ok that makes sense...lets go back to 1950!  How many female athletes were there back then? and how could we even go back 60 years?  That's slightly ridiculous.  SI is a magazine tailored to men, so how much more obvious could it be that more of the covers would be of male sports stars?  Just to test something out I google imaged Sports Illustrated, and this is what I got: 

  

The first page is ALL WOMEN! Except for one photo of a guy.  Now are we going to e-mail Google and ask them kindly to stop featuring women in their search results? Haha no.  Anyways, I thought that would be a funny test.  Now given that most of these women are in "sexualized poses" let's take a look at the above image of Lindsey again.

1) She is a skier

2) Typically skiers need to crouch to go down a hill

3) When you ski you go down a hill

4) SHE IS A SKIER

Now the people at womentalksports are either just looking for something to complain about until Danica Patrick shows up in some sexy Super Bowl commercial, or they are just plain crazy.  The Yahoo article found an image of A.J. Kitt in a 1992 SI cover but I don't see any buzz going on about that, and hey A.J. is seriously bent over.

So I think I have rambled enough, but honestly I can't be the only one out there who thinks this a little too much right? haha.  People are way too sensitive these days.  Why don't we hear anyone complain about the health magazines with half naked women on those?  I could find some you some poses in those but worse!   Does that not count?

~Until Next Time~

WIM

What do you care about?

This cause marketing movement really intrigues me. Not because its an upcoming trend, not because its revolutionizing the industry nor is it because it stirs up really cool campaigns.

Its because I believe cause marketing has always existed in some form or another. And we as marketers, who at times have been accused and figuratively lynched by the masses for exploiting our power and influence to foment decadence in society, now have a cure for the common mob. Marketers now exploit our power and influence for good! Here goes...

On Monday, Pepsi launched its 'Refresh Project' a viral campaign that is destined to set the industry benchmark aflame. I like to think of it as a savvy response to the angry mobs all over the world. With time this bold move will most likely become the tip of an iceberg, a response to stun and astound the angry mobs.

Case-in-point: "In 2009, Pepsi launched the Refresh campaign, celebrating optimism and its role in our changing world. This year, Pepsi is putting that optimism into action, with the the launch of the Pepsi Refresh Project. Over the course of the year Pepsi will be awarding millions of dollars in Pepsi Refresh Grants. Rather than simply donating the money to charity, the Refresh Project promises to connect to consumers on a personal level, increasing their involvement with the brand by letting them decide which projects to fund... It's a refreshing way of doing business..." (Ads of the World, 02/10)

Refreshing way indeed! Check out the ad below to catch a glimpse of this brilliant campaign.

Awesome campaign - I will say no more... moving along -> I was a fan of Nokia until I lost one, broke another and then two broken Blackberry phones later I'm posting about how great it is to see Nokia ramping up their advertising. Did you guys know Nokia has a Chief Trends Officer who travels the world looking for the newest trends in gadgetry? (don't quote me on the CTO title though)

Look forward to your comments!

'til next time!'

-APL

Nokia points the way with huge London sign

Cause marketing is going to be huge in 2010 I can feel it.  Pepsi recently launched their Refresh Project and that's been generating a lot of buzz since it officially began on Monday? I think...  Anyways, it's good to see another example of how we can do good for society, and how fitting that it would be called the Valentine Bowl.

So, as many of you obviously don't know but do now, I'm a big fan of cell phones, and I recently made the switch from Nokia to BlackBerry, not because Nokia is a bad phone, it's just that I had a better deal with a new service.  Actually, I probably would have stuck with my Nokia phone but unfortunately Verizon offers a wide range of really really old Nokia phones.

Anyhow, I'm a big fan of Nokia (probably because I'm from Finland, but that's besides the point) and so when I saw this video it made me happy that Nokia is finally stepping up their advertising because I've always felt that they don't do as much as they should.  As a way to promote Nokia's navigation technologies, our arch nemesis Sweden and the agency Farfar decided to turn their backs on Ericsson, and create a massive digital arrow that would hang above London, and better yet, the public could control where the arrow pointed by sending an SMS to the arrow with a location around the world and the arrow would slowly turn and point to your given destination and give you the distance to it!  This was a great move on Nokia's part and what's a better way to say I'm the best cell phone provider then hanging a gigantic crane with your logo hanging above London?

Anyways, check out the video and see for yourself!

The World's Biggest Signpost from adghost on Vimeo.

~Until Next Time~

WIM

The Valentine Bowl

With the suspense leading up to the SuperBowl well underway its not hard to become disoriented by all the ad and marketing hooplah being thrown your way these past two weeks.

And in hopes of finding the best of the best out there I bring you a campaign developed by the astute folks over at Target. (No puffery added!)

Essentially it is a Facebook app dubbed 'Super Love Sender'. The app allows users to send interactive Valentine's Day cards with the underlying fundraising goal of giving $1million dollars to the charity voted most popular by the card senders.

The campaign is a fun way to share laughs with friends while creating hope for those in need. If big name organizations somehow manage to tie in a small donation for the mass smiles their viral hits create, major social issues could be reformed at the expense of millions of laughs!

That might be too idealistic but I'm aiming for something in that direction. With cause marketing becoming a up-and-coming trend for corporate giants, why not tie in viral with cause mareting like Target did above?

Maybe something like... 'Some people close windows after they view a video, others choose to open windows for humanity. Donate some relief today!'

Take a stab! - critique and/or share your views.

'til next time!'

-APL

Fresh Faces: The Power of Beauty

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their weekend and got their week started with a great Monday. I enjoyed a three day weekend as Mexico commemorates its "day-of-the-flag" today. For me, a great day to catch up on the always looming workload and check out some new blogs.

I'd like to share one of my favorite campaigns I came across today. As I'm sure it will spark the *aja!* moment for those who enjoy learning about excellent social media tactics. And for those 'social media veterans' it serves as an excellent case study for its proper use of the terms 'holistic, viral, social and strategic'.

Case-in-Point: "Bobbi Brown Cosmetics has launched “Pretty Powerful", a campaign featuring real women. A photo gallery profiles eight women, where clicking on each profile reveals a brief bio, a before and after image, video testimonial, and tips from Bobbi herself. The photos and videos transform real women with subtle touches and emphasize that with the right tools, women can feel confident about their natural beauty." (PSFK, NY)

Everything about this campaign makes sense. It puts the product in real use, with real stories, from real people and for all the right reasons. There's no extra lights or gimmicks that try to hook people to listen. That's why I like it. That's why it makes sense. Click on the link to see how.

Now if we could see this same approach being taken by Gillete, Old Spice or Ray Ban (to name only a few) would be out-right genius. Can you imagine all the great stories you'd get? Has it been done before?

I'd like to get your thoughts on this campaign and any potential ideas that surges from our posts.

From here on out.. your ideas should run rampant at this blog, welcome!

'til next time!'

-APL