Digital Disruption

Brands are increasingly looking outside of their traditional advertising / marketing agencies for new innovation and new ideas and the agency model is under threat.

We’re so interconnected now and brands can source ideas from anywhere (at less cost) — it’s the “Napsterization of the Ad Industry” as I called it in a conversation with Ian Mirlin back in September.

We’ve seen brands like Unilever, Amazon, Frito-Lay and P&G pursue this “crowd-sourcing” model and AdAge wrote a great piece this week talking about Pepsi’s latest “Dewmocracy” crowd-sourcing push:

“The trend of marketers relying on the wisdom of crowds to create marketing campaigns is escalating as PepsiCo turns over the choice of agencies for three product launches to the masses, ramping up the potential threat to ad shops bypassed or relegated to a supporting role in implementing the resulting efforts.”

How have agencies responded?  The large multinational agencies are naturally afraid and many are following the same path we saw in the music industry and newspaper industry as technology disrupted their respective business models. They’re burying their heads in the sand and rationalizing this trend as “mere experimentation.” Ignoring this trend may well be a very dangerous non-decision.

Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and others have enabled global social connectivity and shifted power on a scale that is astonishing.  And we’re not going back. Twitter’s stated goal is be the connective tissue for 1 billion people across the world.

This is part of a larger trend of transparency, openness and “free” markets, written about in a recent article in The Economist, entitled “A market for ideas.”

Ian Mirlin made the following prophetic suggestion back in September:

“Someone needs to start a business whose purpose it is to utilize crowd sourcing in a way that balances the input of the crowd with the responsibility of conscientious brand management. Think of it as iTunes for the brand management business – a model which promises fair value for all.”

Enter Victors & Spoils, a new #Crowdsource agency, founded by two former Crispin Porter senior managers:

“The way we see it, companies need an alternative to both current ad agencies as well as current crowdsourcing platforms. One that offers the strategic direction, engagement and relationship management that agencies deliver today, but one that also delivers the engagement, cultural relevance, results and return on investment that crowdsourcing {if managed and directed well} can deliver.”

Global brands aren’t the only ones utilizing this new model to great success.  Here’s a personal example, albeit on a much smaller scale. After 15 years in the agency world, I recently embarked on a new entrepreneurial quest and founded JazLabs, Inc, a seed-stage business incubator. We just used 99designs (a design crowd-sourcing platform with more than 50,000 designers) to source a new corporate logo design for our company. I uploaded a brief and within 4 hours had over 10 creative design directions from people across the globe (Australia, France, Singapore and India). We provided feedback on the designs and within 24 hours, we now have full ownership of our new logo at a cost of $250.

How is this trend impacting your business?  Are you seeing the opportunities to evolve your own business model or do you feel threatened?

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Here’s a great story of a brand who is listening, watching and responding via “a random act of kindness.” This past week, Todd Jamison had his Hyundai totaled in a bizarre parking accident – see the video below:

Hyundai Canada was watching and listening and decided to do something about it:

We went to find the owner of the Hyundai that was the victim of the bad park job and as a random act of kindness, we gave the owner, Todd Jamison, a free car, a brand new 2010 Hyundai Elantra Touring! Todd said ‘Wow’ a lot and ‘That’s fantastic!’ We gave a great car to a great guy. Smart is doing good. At Hyundai, we like a story with a happy ending.

Here’s Hyundai Canada’s response on Youtube:

Hopefully more brands follow the lead and realize that giving back is smart business and ultimately will lead to success. This may appear to be counter-intuitive for the uninitiated but it’s proven to work.  Great brand building exercise by Hyundai: empathy, authenticity, openness, human voice, caring and great ROI.

Congrats to Todd on his new car and congrats to Hyundai Canada for their “random act of kindness.” – Yes, “Smart is doing good.“

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I’ve always been a big fan of the Cloud Computing concept.  The advantages of agility, cost and scalability are overwhelmingly appealing to both end users and IT professionals. Amazon has been one of the leaders in translating the concept / theory into practice with their AWS service. Many of today’s successful Web 2.0 and social web sites have leveraged cloud computing to their advantage and utilize the AWS service.

However, there’s a dark side to cloud computing …

This past week customers with a Sidekick device on the T-Mobile network lost all their data when the network servers owned and managed by Microsoft went down. There’s now a class-action suit pending.  Just when all seemed lost, today customers were luckily informed by Microsoft that their contacts lists could be recovered.

Google has recently had access issues for their GMail service.  Today people are having issues accessing Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

As more and more of our personal and corporate data moves out to the cloud we should all be concerned with the following:

• How secure is it?
• How accessible will it be if/when there’s a major event?

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I started my personal blog in late 2005. In almost four years, I’ve only written 158 blog posts.  I joined Twitter on October 21, 2007. In two years I’ve tweeted 2,868 times! 158 blog posts in four years vs. 2,868 tweets in two years. That’s a 36:1 ratio between Twitter and this blog.

WOW!

I know this isn’t really a valid comparison. A single 140 character tweet (or retweet) that takes a few seconds to create can’t really be compared to a detailed blog post that can take several hours to write and edit.

So, what measure of value can I use as a valid comparison?

How about engagement / dialog?

When I look at two of the most successful posts I’ve written here and here (measured by comments and references made to them by other people out in the blogosphere), I feel that I contributed something of value to the community. Do my tweets contribute any value?  I guess they must to the 1,200 or so people who follow me on Twitter.

Is this a cop-out? Am I just too lazy to write more on the blog?

After some soul-searching it’s clear that I love the sense of community on Twitter and the sense that I’m plugged into the “flow” or the stream. My blog is out on the periphery and it only gets between 0 and 100 visits a day according to Google Analytics.

So what do you think? Does this blog add any value? Should I shut it down? Or invest more time and energy to make it something of more value?  Your thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated.

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I’m helping to raise funds to
#beatcancer, by blogging, tweeting
and posting Facebook status
updates.

Click here to join me!

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!שנה טובה ומתוקה

Shana Tova u’Metuka!

I wish you and yours a good and sweet year filled with blessing, success, health, wealth, joy, happiness and peace!

P. S. For those of you who are on Twitter, check out Twitteleh: Twitter for your Jewish mother

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I’ve been working at the forefront of the Internet for the past 15 years helping clients embrace the transformational power of the Internet to drive their businesses forward. Today I’m even more passionate about this transformational power of Digital than I was 15 years ago — In my personal opinion it’s one of the most significant agents of change we’ve ever experienced and it’s at the center of the most profound global convergence of brands, businesses, technology, markets, people and communities that we witness today and I strongly believe that it will continue to be a significant agent of change tomorrow and into the future. It now extends way beyond e-commerce or marketing or communications or social media or mobile. It has shaken up industries, transformed the World as we know it and has brought us all much closer together.

After spending the past four years leading Organic’s Toronto office and growing the business fourfold, it’s time for me to re-embrace this passion within me and embark on a new entrepreneurial quest.

I’ve just founded JazLabs, Inc, – a 21st century digital consultancy & idea incubator which has at it’s core openness, transparency, collaboration, story-telling and an empathy-based approach to solving today and tomorrow’s business and marketing challenges. A company at the intersection of the global conversation between brands and people; powered by social business design. More specifically, think of Jazlabs as a new business incubator at the intersection of business, technology, markets, people and community. Contact us to find out more and to become part of the JazLabs ecosystem.

What’s driving me forward? What makes me tick? Let’s look back at my personal journey so far …

A degree in math and computer science and a love of analytics got me into derivatives trading where I discovered my addiction to constant change and innovation, my love of technology, my passion for understanding people and how their beliefs, values, perceptions, fears and greed transform markets. It’s where I nurtured a sense of urgency and an impatience to achieve results. In other words, It was an excellent training ground for working in the digital space.

In 1994, I witnessed the Internet over a 300 baud dial-up connection; I was instantly smitten and thought, “this will change the world.” So I founded my own interactive agency, with BMW as my first client. In 1996 I sold my business and moved to North America, and to Modem Media where I established and grew their account services practice, then I migrated to Wunderman. As VP, Interactive, I built Wunderman Canada‘s digital practice and subsequently sold the services across the Wunderman network in North America and Europe, working on brands like Ford, AT&T and Citibank. I then became SVP in New York, leading a global team responsible for IBM’s interactive marketing across major markets in North America, Europe and Asia.

I missed working exclusively on digital, so I joined Blast Radius’ Toronto office as Managing Director. While there I opened and grew their Chicago office, focusing on driving business in Eastern Canada and the Central US. In 2005, I became the head of Organic’s Toronto office. Since then, we grew fourfold in size and service three of Organic’s largest global clients—Chrysler, Nike and Bank of America. I also became the publisher of Organic’s industry-insider blog, http://threeminds.com

I think of myself as a collaborator, cross-pollinator, experimenter, connector, doer, entrepreneur and builder. That’s what living digitally does to you, makes you think not just outside of the box but across boxes and borders, calling up the sum of your knowledge and experience.

If this has peaked your interest and you need some help exploring and developing an interesting idea that will transform your company and/or industry, please don’t hesitate to reach out and work with me.

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On Saturday, September 12, Toronto’s well-connected industry professionals will get on board the Northern Spirit for a good cause.  Come join the party featuring a night of Hollywood glamor to benefit Meal Exchange.

Meal Exchange helps fight hunger in Canada through student-lead initiatives. Coming up to its 10th birthday, Meal Exchange has raised over $2.4 million with the help of over 50,000 Canadian students.

100% of the proceeds from September 12th’s volunteer-run Twestival event will benefit Meal Exchange.

Find out more and buy your tickets online at http://toronto.twestival.com

Check out the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159025509837

Show your support on Twitter – Tweet about this event using the #TwestivalTO and #MealExchange hashtags.  Follow TwestivalTO and MealExchange on Twitter.

Just in time for the Toronto International Film Festival!  Who knows, maybe a few of your favorite Hollywood stars may be onboard (Maybe even Andy Samberg and T-Pain)

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Star Wars Uncut is a crowd-sourced / UGC recreation of “Star Wars: A New Hope.”  The movie was broken up into 473 15-second segments and the community asked to select up to three segments to recreate and submit.

The community has been busy. All segments have been taken and there are 14 completed so far. Once all segments have been completed, they will be stitched together to produce a very geeky but very cool version of the original movie.

Does this mean a future of viewers turning into script-writers and producers? And will the UG version be better than the original?

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This morning, I participated in my first live interview using Twitter.

Ad Lounge interviewed me for 45 minutes and we discussed creativity and innovation.

This was the second of a series of live interviews with 20 leading marketers who are participating in Art From the Unexpected, Ad Lounge’s upcoming industry event centered on creativity and innovation in the business world.

Today’s experience was exhilarating – being able to have a live exchange, asking and answering questions live at 140 characters a time.

I’ve been using Twitter for over two years and I feel very comfortable using Twitter for listening, sharing, commenting and debating.  However, today’s experience provided some interesting insights that I thought I would share.

Some key observations:

1. Clutter: I found it difficult to concentrate and focus on the one conversation with Trina Boos at @adlounge.  Her questions were excellent but with the current Twitter tools at my disposal (I was using Tweetdeck and Twitter Search), I found my eyes being distracted by people retweeting things and friends and colleagues sending me DM messaging during the interview. Bottom line: It’s hard to have a focused one-on-one exchange on Twitter that lasts for 45 minutes.  This is probably a legacy of my “continuous partial attention” problem I’ve written about previously.
2. Real-time feedback / visibility: As a counterpoint to the previous clutter issue, the fact that people could provide me with real-time feedback and comments (privately and publicly) turned this into a valuable, shared experience for more than just @adlounge and @davidfeldt.
3. Timing: The 140 character limit had the potential to make it difficult for both of us to judge when a train of thought was complete and when to move on to the next question.  We agreed before hand that we would use “…” at the end of a post if there was more to follow.  This ensured we knew when the other person was still in the process of talking vs. done talking.
4. Nuance: I was surprised that we were able to detect the nuances in the conversation and play off of each other as well as we did.  I thought it was going to difficult to have a smooth, flowing exchange.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the conversation flowed.

Thanks to Trina for including me in this Twitter experiment.  I loved the experience and I trust that people benefited from the exchange.  However, I think we still have a need to evolve the tools so we can truly experience the art of conversation on Twitter.

For those who “tuned in” live this morning, I’d love to get your feedback / comments.  Please do so below.  For those who didn’t witness the experience live, hopefully you can get a taste of it here.  Your feedback / comments too please!

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