Let’s Discuss: The power of combining your brand’s visible assets with promotions to make celebrities out of your audience.

EMG 30-Second Rundown
NASA is currently running an online promotion called “Face in Space” to draw attention and interest to the final two Endeavour shuttle flights, STS-133 and STS-134. The promotion leverages a microsite that allows people to upload a photo of their face to be taken aboard one of the remaining flights and launched into orbit (a nice alternative route into orbit over others that are morbid, costly, or statistically challenging). The campaign has been quite a success so far with over 62,508 total participants from 6 continents (including yours truly representing EMG in space), and a significant amount of global media coverage.

NASA is motivating participation (and driving awareness of its programs in the process) by making available to its audience a chance to be visibly associated with its brand in a significant and meaningful way. Call it “celebrifying” its audience.

Other recent examples of brands employing this tactic:

• To celebrate selling 500,000 Fiat 500 vehicles, Italy’s Fiat Group launched an online promotion that invited the public to submit photos to be incorporated into the paint job of a special edition Fiat 500 showcar (to be known as the Fiat 500 Thousandth). The promotion has received worldwide coverage and all 1,500 spots that were available on the car will be filled.

• In anticipation of the Paranormal Activity DVD release, distributor Paramount invited all the fans that made the movie such a success to submit their name for inclusion in the DVD film credits. Just over 149,000 fans participated, and as of writing this, 823,000 DVDs have been sold.

The EMG Takeaway
There are two dynamics at play here that make this tactic of celebrifying your audience so powerful, Celebrity to the World (incentive) and Celebrity to Us (bonding).

Celebrity to the World is the incentive a brand offers when it creates the opportunity to associate your face or name to the public using a visible brand asset. The prospect of being able to tell my friends my photo is going to be launched into space makes me feel like a celebrity, and motivates me to participate.

Celebrity to Us describes the connection that is formed between a brand and an individual when the brand incorporates them into one of its visible brand assets. Knowing I’ve been included in the launch of a space shuttle makes me feel like a celebrity to NASA, and deepens my bond with the brand.

The real takeaway is that when pairing an incentive to an online promotion, it can be just as effective (if not significantly more so) to appeal to the ego of participants instead of their checkbooks. If NASA created an online essay contest and offered $1,000 to the winner, I’m quite positive they wouldn’t have received the same level of participation or media coverage.

Final Words: When designing a promotion, consider what visible assets your brand can leverage to make celebrities out of your audience to incentivize participation and deepen a connection with your brand.

3 Questions to Continue the Discussion

1. What brands have made you feel like a celebrity?
2. If you’re a brand manager, what visible assets have you used to celebrify your audience?
3. Is your face going to be on board on of the final two Endeavour shuttle flights?

Photo credit: Matthew Simantov / Flickr

Let’s Discuss: A very insightful panel hosted last night by networking organization Digital LA entitled “Digital Music Panel: Artists Go Social.” The panel was comprised of artists, artist management, music labels, marketing technology providers, and even the CMO of The Grammys.

EMG 30-Second Rundown
The general topic of the panel discussion was how artists are using social media and digital technology to market themselves and their music. A wide range of questions directed at the panel covered areas such as the varied approaches to social media taken by emerging artists vs. established artists, the shifting role of the record label in promoting artists, what it is fans expect from the artists they engage with, and emerging technologies impacting how fans connect with artists.

The EMG Takeaway
Here are four themes that emerged from the panel that I found relevant and interesting. With a shift in context, these themes can easily be applied to brands in general, not just music artists.

• New Revenue Models Continue to Emerge – The music industry is no stranger to experimenting with revenue models for monetization of artists, driven for years by an erosion of album sales, shrinking profit margins, and rampant piracy. One of the interesting models shared at the panel was that of a revenue share between mobile application developer (in this case, BlueHaze) and artist. Rather than having an artist (or label) front money for the development of a mobile application, BlueHaze has arranged deals where revenue derived from the application is split between BlueHaze and the artist. In this model, both parties have monetary incentive to see the application succeed, the artist doesn’t take on any financial risk, and the application developer has the potential to see greater upside than they would from a standard development deal.

• Artists Take Control – One of the key themes of the panel was that artists are more empowered than ever to take promotion of their music into their own hands via social media and digital endeavors. This isn’t a ground-breaking theme, but I felt compelled to include it so I could drop this gem of a quote from one of the panel-members, an LA-based artist with national exposure: “I’m a rapper, I shouldn’t know about web optimization – but I do.” In other words, this empowerment means a modern music artist, especially an emerging one, needs skill sets that go beyond just the musical variety.

• Don’t Ignore the Etc. – In the context of social networks, there’s a phrase we use at EMG called “Don’t ignore the etc.” in response to people referring to “Facebook, Twitter, etc.” One of the artists on the panel was adamant about this in response to an audience member’s remark about the decline of MySpace’s user base. To this artist, MySpace still represented a very viable source of communication and interaction with fans, and was ignored at the artist’s peril. Not ignoring the etc. means recognizing the communities and networks that matter to your fans.

• Convert Your Audience – It’s not enough to just accumulate an audience through social media. Ideally, artists will implement mechanisms for converting their audiences in a way that directly impacts the artist’s success. This doesn’t mean just Tweeting out a link to Ticketmaster either. The most creative conversion mechanisms reward audiences for taking action, and two of the companies present on the panel, CultureJam and Eventful, offer technology that allow artists to do just that. CultureJam offers a product that allows bands to deliver, among other things, free MP3 downloads to fans in exchange for sending out promotional Tweets on the band’s behalf. In this conversion, the fans get music, the band gets exposure. Eventful gives artists a platform for directing their fans to “demand” local concerts. In this conversion, the fans get a better chance of seeing their favorite artists, the band gains both leverage with local promoters, as well as valuable insight for planning tours.

Final Words: While the economics of the music industry can be at times daunting to artists, the availability of tools, channels, and technologies for growing an audience and making it count is very exciting, and ripe with opportunity. It should also be noted that no amount of tools, channels, and technology can make bad music good (mediocre music maybe), and these tools, channels, and technology require incredible dedication, strategy, and hustle to be effective.

3 Questions to Continue the Discussion

1. If you’re an artist, what web technology could you not live without?
2. If you’re a fan, what is most memorable experience you’ve had with a band through social media?
3. If you’re a marketer of artists, but social technology provides the best blend of promotional effectiveness with positive experience for the fans?

Photo credit: marfis75 / Flickr

Inspired by Mashable’s Onion Ring More Popular Than Justin Bieber in Latest Facebook Meme

Let’s Discuss: Wildly popular “other” Facebook fan pages that are neither Artist, Band, Public Figure, Brand, Product, Organization, or Local Entity (the categories Facebook expects all fan pages to ascribe to), and the motivating forces behind their creation and popularity with those who fan them.

EMG 30-Second Rundown
Some examples of these “other” Facebook fan pages are: Ra Ra Ra Ah Ah Ah, Roma Ro Ma Ma, Gaga Ooh La La (915,233 fans and counting), Snow Cones (528,184 fans and counting), and Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper? (145,166 fans and counting, good thing fried food can’t be elected Canadian Prime Minister).

For context, Honda, which ended its recent Super Bowl commercial with a reference to Facebook.com/Honda, has 299,262 Facebook fans. And in case you’re wondering, “Ra Ra Ra Ah Ah Ah, Roma Ro Ma Ma, Gaga Ooh La La” is a lyric from the Lady Gaga song Bad Romance. That’s correct; a lyric from a Lady Gaga song has more fans on Facebook than the 5th largest manufacturer of cars in the world. I digress.

It’s important to note to that according to Facebook terms of service, “Pages are special profiles that may only be used to promote a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor (including non-profit organizations, political campaigns, bands, and celebrities).” Facebook suggests users who want to create other types of fan pages create a Facebook Group instead, but that hasn’t stopped the flood of these non-conformist Facebook fan pages.

The EMG Takeaway
Why do people create and join these fan pages?

• To display adoration (“I love snow cones, I’ll make a Facebook fan page!”) or perhaps to find others who share a common passion; after all, the best social endeavors facilitate connections of value. On the Snow Cones fan page, the post “Do you have an awesome snow cone story? Let’s hear it!” elicited 691 comments, including my favorite, “While I was pregnant with my first son, I was very sick the entire 9 months. I even lost 40 lbs. because I couldn’t keep food down. The only thing I could eat was Snowcones! Snowcones saved me. My son, now 21, always tells this story to explain why he loves them too.” Unofficial fan pages become micro-niche communities around a common passion.

• To make others laugh, or to be the author of an internet meme. The virality of the internet is greased with humor (ask the founders of Fail Blog, the creators of Rick Rolling, or the 5 million people who go to Break.com every month). According to the original admin of Ra Ra Ra Ah Ah Ah, Roma Ro Ma Ma, Gaga Ooh La La, “I started the page because it was a joke between me and my friends, we didn’t really like the song and thought the lyrics were really random… I didn’t really expect it to get too many fans but then it randomly got big, very fast.” While I personally wouldn’t laugh if I saw a friend become a fan of this particular page, I might if I noticed a friend fan, “Pretending to Text in Awkward Situations,” (3,149,129 fans and counting).

• To make a statement or join a movement. In an environment where fans = popularity, demonstrating that an onion ring can garner more fans than the Prime Minister of Canada is quite a statement. Judging by fan comments on the page “Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?” (“Onion rings are far more tasty than Conservative policy” and “Even this bad onion ring is better for my health than Stephen Harper”), the statement made by the page creator clearly resonates. In this case fanning a page is almost like slapping a bumper sticker on your car. Also consider that people gravitate towards movements with goals (let’s get more fans than…), and they join these fan pages for the same reason people “followed” Ashton Kutcher on Twitter to help him beat out CNN in a race to one million followers. We want to be a part of something greater than ourselves.

So what can you learn from these “other” fan pages?

As you build your own “official” fan pages, seek out fans that love what you do or the product you provide. When you do engage with your fans, the responses will be that much more passionate, genuine, and valuable to the connections you are creating. Study the most successful of these fan pages as a lesson in what goes viral. “Pretending to Text in Awkward Situations” sounds like an awesome campaign name Boost Mobile. Finally, give your fan base, audience, customers, etc. something to rally around. Yes, contests and sweepstakes are a great motivator, but uniting people in pursuit of a singular and common goal can be very powerful too.

Final Words: Facebook fan pages are great for brands…and a source of niche-communities, viral humor, and Canadian political movements we can all learn from.

3 Questions to Continue the Discussion

1. Have you joined one of these “other” Facebook fan pages? And if so, why?
2. Can you suggest a better categorization for these pages than “other”?
3. Do these pages constitute spam and dilute the value of “official” Facebook fan pages?

Photo credit: Dhack55 / Flickr

Let’s Discuss: An article from the New York Times, The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s

EMG 30-Second Rundown: The pace at which technology is accelerating is exaggerating the differences in culture, expectations, and mindsets among different generations of today’s children, teenagers, and young adults. It’s essentially creating mini-generation gaps. Kids only years apart might have vastly different communication preferences, and even mental capabilities such as multi-tasking.

Key Quote: “People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology…College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”

The EMG Takeaway: Perhaps the notion of the “18-25 year old” marketing segment loses a bit of relevancy as the difference of only a couple years displays itself in exaggerated ways. The article is also resounding endorsement of the discovery process, truly understanding who you are trying to reach, their expectations and needs, and why that knowledge might alter your tactical approach. It’s a phenomenal reminder too for us to step outside of our own expectations for how we want products marketed to us. While one generation might find receiving a text message upon entry to a grocery store utterly intrusive, another generation (or sub-generation) might expect the interaction and find the experience odd or disappointing without it.

Final Words: An article interesting for the insight it provides, and the reminder that it serves.

Three Questions from EMG to Continue the Discussion:

1. How do you stay actively in touch with the expectations of those outside your own generation?

2. Have you observed instances of this mini-generational gap in your own life?

3. Kids have always had the attitude that their parents are hopelessly out of touch; is this any different, or is the contrast of the divide starker than ever?

Photo credit: gnta / Flickr